The Return of Strength, Spiritual Warfare, and the Holy Fear of Healing

I woke up today with something entirely different on my mind. It’s 5:30 a.m., and for the second week in a row, I am experiencing consistent sleep. I went to bed around 11:00 p.m., getting at least six solid hours. My physical strength is returning. My mental capacity is sharpening every single day. Yesterday, I ran up the bridge in record time, finishing a two-mile loop feeling like I could finally be whole again. It’s the healing I have been desperately praying for.

But alongside that healing is a deep, gripping worry: As my strength returns, will I forget the Lord?

When God restored my sleep back in February, I wasn't ready for it. I immediately turned back to my own ways—going out, partying, and drinking until 4:00 a.m. I believe God has kept me in the chains of sleep deprivation recently so I would have no choice but to focus entirely on Him and the tasks He has put in front of me. I am terrified of failing Him again. I find myself praying, Lord, please prepare my heart to be healed so that I may follow You in my strength, not myself.

As I read the stories of the children of Israel this month, I see how quickly they turned to self-worship and idols the moment they were comfortable. I don't want that to be my story. I want to worship God when everything is good, when I am healthy, and when I have the energy to fight. I want to use this returning strength to go into one more battle in my old age, just like Joshua, and give all the glory to God.

The Cost of Purity

My thoughts this morning drifted to my past—to the sexual abuse I endured before middle school, how I lost my virginity, and how I tried so hard to do the right thing in high school but failed miserably.

And then, I think of my son, Cash. The contrast is staggering.

Cash used to ask me when I got angry, "Hey Micah, why do you let people control you so easily?" He challenged me constantly to be sexually pure. He never judged me for my mistakes; he just loved me. I remember a time he went six months without defiling himself. He took cold showers—something I used to make fun of him for—but he was doing it to completely control his emotional and physical responses. He didn't want to make the same mistakes I did. He loved me, but he knew his father was an imperfect man.

In Mark 8:34, Jesus says, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." Cash lived that. He denied his flesh to protect his purity. He often reminisced about how happy his childhood was before his parents divorced. I wish I could take that pain away from him, but I have to forgive myself and recognize that the pain helped shape him into the godly warrior he was.

Confronting a Legion

When Cash was murdered in our driveway, he wasn't just facing a man. He was facing a legion of demons.

As I’ve read through the Old Testament and the Gospel of Mark this month, the accounts of demonic possession stand out to me. There are levels to this spiritual warfare. The man who murdered my son fought six police officers for over 45 minutes before they could subdue him and get him into a squad car. People want to explain this away by saying he was on meth or psychedelics. But days later, long after any drugs would have worn off, it took five guards an hour to subdue him in his jail cell. He bit them, broke flesh, and broke bones. In the courtroom, he was described as having "superhuman strength."

That is not human. That is exactly what we see in Mark 5, when Jesus confronts the man living in the tombs who could not be bound or subdued by anyone because he was possessed by a legion.

I wonder what pure evil Cash confronted that day. The murderer approached holding a small child—a little girl—in his arms. I am sure that took my son by surprise. The absolute last thing he would have expected was that a legion of demons, hiding behind a child, would be the cause of his earthly death.

The Cry for Justice

I cry out to the Lord for justice. Will we get justice as this man makes a mockery of the court system? He claims to be a "sovereign citizen," acting as though he is above the law—a felon and an armed robber turning our once-great justice system into a joke.

Psalm 82:8 says, "Rise up, O God, judge the earth, for all the nations are your inheritance." When earthly systems fail us, I have to anchor myself to the truth that God has the final say.

I am praying for the hardest thing imaginable: the strength to forgive this man and to pray for his salvation. I am asking God to help me find compassion for him when every fiber of my earthly body screams for vengeance.

Setting Up an Ebenezer

I am mentally and physically scarred. I will never be the same after Cash’s murder. But today, I feel the righteous strength returning to do God's will.

In 1 Samuel 7, Samuel sets up a stone—an Ebenezer—to remember that "Thus far the Lord has helped us." This blog post is my Ebenezer today. I am documenting the return of my strength so that I never forget who gave it to me.

I pray that God uses this renewed mind and body to create 100x influence. I want to point people back to God. I want to have godly conversations, fighting for true revival in this country as we approach our 250th anniversary. I pray God prepares our hearts without having to prune us as harshly as He did the Israelites.

Thank You, Lord, for renewing my mind. Please don't let this feeling go away. There is no better feeling than the hope of one day standing before You, reuniting with my son, and hearing You say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."