Now when Paul and his company loosed from Paphos, they came to Perga in Pamphylia: and John departing from them returned to Jerusalem. But when they departed from Perga, they came to Antioch in Pisidia, and went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and sat down.

Acts 13:13-14

Mentoring takes time and effort…and love. When a person suddenly turns or betrays a mentor, the emotional hurt can be overwhelming, kind of worse than losing a loved one. Of course, the ultimate betrayal was when Judas turned on Jesus. Just imagine the pain that it caused Jesus all those years, He knew it was coming from Judas, yet He loved him anyway.

Paul and Barnabas set sail from Paphos to Perga in Turkey and then on to Antioch in the hills of Pisidia. This is not to be confused with the Antioch of Syria where the disciples were first called Christians. John Mark, however, travelled in the opposite direction. He was not with Barnabas and Paul for very long and Scripture does not mention the reasons for his desertion. John Mark made his way back to Jerusalem, which would not be cheap or easy for him considering that he had to catch a boat and then make his way inward to Jerusalem. He had to be quite determined and had the resources to leave Barnabas and Paul in order to travel all that way alone.

Have you had someone betray you? Have you experienced the emotional hurt of their desertion? Take heart, you are in good company. Don’t make it cause you to never invest in someone else again. The enemy would LOVE that. Make it challenge you to do it over and over again in spite of the emotional cost, after all, that is what Jesus does for us.

Written by Kaye Dee Richards. Kaye Dee lives with her husband Colin in Morrison, CO. They have 4 children, Joshua, Amelia, Victoria, and Julia.
To contact Kaye Dee, leave a comment, message us on Facebook or email comments@thebeautifulspirit.org.