February 13, 2022

II Timothy 4: 9, 10 (NIV)

Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica.

Pilgrims with no vision of the promised land become proprietors of their own land. They set up camp. They exchange hiking boots for loafers and trade in their staff for a new recliner.*

Demas had been one of Paul’s ministry companions but now, when Paul is at a critical and vulnerable stage in his life, Demas has decided to leave him. Paul’s characterization of Demas’ actions as “desertion” tells how Paul feels about it. But Paul isn’t mad at Demas just because he is leaving. It isn’t what Demas did or where he went that caused Paul’s disappointment – it was because of what he loved.

We must be careful not to make judgments about a person’s decisions based on just what we can observe. The only way Paul could know why Demas was abandoning ship was if Demas had told him or if his behavior spoke eloquently about his priorities.

Leaving the ministry or the mission-field is not a sure sign that someone has abandoned God’s purpose for his life. I know a young couple who had committed their lives to Bible translation in an African country only to “abandon” their mission after his illness prevented him from performing the duties for which they had trained and prepared. Another missionary couple returned home from the field, feeling like failures because they were there only two years. They needed to be reminded of two particular lives they touched while serving there – and that those lives may have been their sole purpose for being in that place at that time.

We don’t understand the hows and whys of God’s work in our own lives so we certainly can’t speak with authority on how he is working in another’s life. Read the story about Philip in Acts chapter 8. He was involved in a successful ministry where his miraculous signs were witnessed by crowds of people. Then God sent him to a lonely desert road where he preached to an audience of one. That doesn’t make sense to us, does it?

If you have surrendered your will to God’s, you may be led to preach to someone on a lonely stretch of highway; you may find yourself too sick to preach to anyone; you may question how your present circumstances fit into God’s plan at all. Stay faithful and make sure that you don’t fall into the trap of loving the world like Demas did.

Ultimately, our concern should be for the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom by whatever means he deems best.*