No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
One night after our core group meeting, my worship leader (with the chick drummer wife) called me on the phone.
"Bro, I can't do this anymore. I think I'm done," he said.
"Dude, it is OK; my wife can lead worship for a while and give you guys a break," I told him.
"No," he said. "I'm not talking about the church. I mean I don't think I can be married anymore; I'm done with my marriage."
He wasn't kidding. Within a few weeks he left his wife...
The worship leader and I had spent hours upon hours together. We probably spent twenty hours a week together for nine months, dreaming and planning and praying for this church, and I worked for him part-time installing ceramic tile. When he told me he was leaving his wife, I resigned from planting the church, unofficially.
I went home to Annie, who was pregnant with our second child, and announced that I was quitting. "We can't quit," she said. "God has called us to do this!" I love my wife. She always seems to speak the truth at the right time. In this instance, her response shocked me, largely because she had spent the first six months crying about how she disliked the city, our house, and the fact that we had some more than slightly messed-up people living beneath our bedroom floor. Evidently, God had worked in her heart, and it was her courage and God's encouragement through her that kept me in the game.
--Darrin Patrick (and Matt Carter), For the City: Proclaiming and Living Out the Gospel
Please keep me in the game, Father. If this truly is Your idea, whatever it takes, no matter how many deaths, please keep me in the game. For Jesus' sake, Amen.
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