Friend needs prayer

H

healsalot

New Member
I have a friend that I have become closer to than anyone other than my brother in the past couple years. He is a pastor and goes around doing small outreach missions in poor areas. He does this all out of his own money and never asks for anything. He feeds the people wherever he does these and takes stuff for door prizes. I help him by taking my sound equipment for him and my wife sings for him at these outreaches (she's currently wanting to record a CD and give it away at them also).

Well, his wife has done a 180 degree turn around the last 6 months. She's got a boyfriend, kicked him out, and has filed for divorce. She is not wanting him to have anything. She is even wanting to charge him for his car (it's in her name) even though it's paid for. She can go get it at anytime she wants until a court awards it to him in the divorce. They have a $180k house that he doesn't want a dime from, has asked her for NOTHING but the car. She is really trying to be mean in this.

I had to loan him the money for his lawyer yesterday so he could at least stick up for himself.

I am worried that his outreaches may not be able to continue for a while until all this is over. He works 3 jobs plus is the pastor on call for the local homeless shelter. She is trying to make him pay her $500/month for 2 years for a car that isn't worth more than 5k. Make him buy her groceries for a year AND pay a loan she took out. His wife was a good friend of my wife's until this happened. She tried to stay friends with her but my wife wouldn't lie to her and tell her what she is doing is OK so she won't talk to us anymore. My wife told her what she was doing is wrong as in the boyfriend but she wouldn't listen.

Just pray that he will be able to continue what he is doing and get through this quickly.
 
This is just sad and it is happening all over the place these days. As a pastor my suggestion is your friend should focus on winning his wife back and take a break from the ministry. Though the wife may have this bad behaviour now - I have never seen any relationship break down "all of a sudden" - there may not be visible signs but it never just happens.

The best thing that we can all do is pray that what God has joined together would not be torn apart by sin.

God > Family > Ministry

/praying
 
His wife has had this "friend" for a year. She always said they were just friends and would go places together. My wife would mention that it doesn't always look good when she goes places like that and spends that much time with another man but she kept swearing they were "just friends".

My friend worked 3 jobs for years and she hasn't worked in several years and is on disability. One of the jobs he works was just for her to have extra money because she is a shop a holic and has over a dozen Coach purses, 3 or 4 Ed hardy purses and is very materialistic.

The day she kicked him out, she moved her "friend" in with her. I know stuff like this doesn't come out overnight. Now, talking to him, we can see where it's been building up over the last year. She has done a complete personality change and is now trying to buy a Harley to go riding with her "friend". She won't even talk to her husband about reconciliation. She has filed the divorce and won't go see a counselor with him or anything.

It is a shame. He can't really put his outreaches off, he has them already scheduled and advertised through December in the places we are going. I am trying to do as much of the work for him that I can to help take some of the load off him. My wife and I are buying the food for the one next week but we can't do that continually.

I asked him about taking a break from the Homeless shelter but he said that even working 3 jobs he has much more free time now that he's on his own and that going there helps keep him occupied. He says the hardest times are when he's at home alone so he tries to just stay busy right now.

We get together on his evenings off and go to the movies or just sit and watch T.V. or something. If you have any advice on how to help him, I'd appreciate it. He knows that my wife and I are there for him no matter what. He's had to call me at midnight several times just to talk and pray because he couldn't get used to being alone.
 
That plain sucks and I've feel his pain. I've been there.

Tell him to be strong and push into Jesus. I'm a big believer in tough love. He shouldn't pander to her sin, but move forward with joy. It's quite possible her (his wife's) greatest joy is knowing that she is "sticking it to him" right now. Which means a couple of things that are not easy....

1. It's his fault.
2. He needs to beg God to forgive him for failing as husband.

I know that sounds antithetical to what you said, but it takes two to tango. Maybe if he wasn't so involved in so many ministries he would have noticed his wife moving away from him. Whether or not this is the case, the best thing to do is repent and press into Jesus and then... with joy embrace his calling in Christ and pray for His wife to return, but .... STAY STRONG. Don't cry and whine and fuss and beg. He is a child of God redeemed by the Creator of the universe.

/praying.
 
He knows it isn't all her fault. She wanted attention and he wasn't there to give it to her because of his jobs and ministries. They even discussed him quitting one of the jobs but she finally told him not to. He has decided to just keep going with them for now but if she does decide to reconcile he will quit one of the jobs to spend more time with her. He just doesn't want to right now because of the "idle" time he would have.

also, the wife's mother was diagnosed late in life with schizophrenia. I don't know much about this but my wife's sister is schizophrenic and still lives with their mom. My wife thinks that maybe she's going through the same thing her mother did and schizophrenia is coming out. My wife says some of the things she has done are classic signs of it. This woman needed a ride to go get groceries not too long ago but she refused to accept a ride from my wife because she was afraid that her husband had tampered with my wife's car.

We have prayed for both of them and I don't baby him and tell him it's all her fault. He knows he has been wrong on things and sees now what he could have done to make it better but she won't even consider it now.

I think I'm more mad at her than he is. He has been trying to take the Godly position in everything he does. I'm not really good at giving advice on this type of thing because all I know about divorce is from my experience and I didn't really handle it in a Godly manner at the time. I have been able to tell him what not to do :) which is basically what I did when I went through mine.
 
Thank God for the body of Christ to be there when we go through these trials. It sounds like you are being a good friend to him.
 
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