I was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy when I was born. If you are not familiar with MD, it is a neuromuscular disease that affects muscles causing weakness (mostly the legs.) I am 21 years old and still walking while most patients are in wheelchairs as early as age nine. In extreme cases, some children do not live past their twenties.
I just wanted to share some of my life struggle to show people that God is real. I know what it is like to feel like God does not listen to prayers, but He hears them loud and clear. Honestly, we are the ones that fail to listen to what God responds back to us. Sometimes God works in pieces and when what get something other than what we ask for we pitch a fit.
I’ve not been healed of this disease although I pray for it daily and I still keep my faith. We pray for God to eject us out of a situation when it strains us instead of asking for steadfastness, wisdom, and understanding to traverse the uncomfortable grounds of struggling.
Jesus suffered unimaginably harsh persecution and all sorts of pain in order for us to have our sins forgiven. I embrace my suffering because I know this thing, I’m dealing with is only temporary. Do not lose hope! Satan uses depression, self-doubt, and many other forces to make us feel trapped.
Speak against your struggles! Speak your desires out loud into the atmosphere. Speak against those forces and let them know they have no power over you. Weapons will always be formed against us but shall never prosper.
Lord Jesus, I come to you in prayer. I pray that you break the bondage chains of anyone who reads this. That you reassure them that there is more to life than tribulation. You do not allow us to face things we cannot handle. Allow us to say I CAN even when we feel it is impossible. Give us the strength to keep fighting and when we are out of breath, breathe for us. In your name, we pray, Amen!
Isaiah 54:17 New King James Version (NKJV)
17 No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the Lord.
Thank you brother! I’m deployed now and I’m struggling with porn, lust, and emotional adultery. It’s not helping that both my wife and I are depressed. I know it’s bad because at times I don’t want a way out. But I know deep down I’m a fool. Please pray for me and my family. Your brother in Christ.
Praise Jesus Christ. Right when I got an injury, I was so anxious and depressed and it had taken me down to the lowest emotional point of my life. Jesus is our Savior! Our Protector! Our Doctor! Our Healer! Our God!
Thank you for your precious words of encouragement. You are a blessing!!!
Thank you bro. Mike for a touching and impactful point you made here – that of remaining steadfast even when we don’t get our prayers answered, or when there is delay or when the answers come differently packaged.
To buttress this point, a few days ago I was thinking of this and I remembered Hebrews 11. From the 4th to the 34th verse we see the exploits of the heroes of our faith in their doggedness and ruggedity and steadfastness that eventually they received their answers- awesome testimonies which we today still marvel at today.
But from verse 36 to 38 we see another kind of faith that’s not much talked about today or very rarely- that of choosing or submitting to affliction or even death to prove the reality of a better world to come –
Hebrews 11:35-38
Sometimes the above scripture brings me almost to tears as it convicts me of my spiritual laziness and constant desires for a feel good Christianity of constantly answered prayers my way. Or the prosperity gospel of today.
Your testimony reminds that 1. the God of the hills is still the God of the valley 2. He chooses to show His mercy to whomever He wants, however He wants and at whatever time He wants 3. No matter how it looks, it could have been worse but for His mercy because we only see in part. 4. God’s time is the best time. 5. God’s speed is the best too.
What an awesome God we serve.