Perhaps you can relate. The doctors told you there was nothing more they could do. Maybe you’ve been praying over and over, and you’re still struggling. I beg you: Keep praying. God answers those who call on His name, and at the right moment, He will bring a sudden manifestation of healing. I know it can be exhausting to keep praying when things don’t seem to be changing. But what if you stopped right before the breakthrough? What if you gave up right before Jesus was about to enter the scene? Healing isn’t just something God does; the healer is who He is. Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals, has not changed. I cannot guarantee you a timeline, but I can guarantee that He will walk with you through the process.

Years ago, I heard about something called the Dalton Miracle Bible in Georgia. Videos were posted online of a Bible oozing oil, and people who touched it shared incredible testimonies of being healed. Recently, the Lord brought this story to my mind, so I looked into it again. It turns out this entire thing imploded, with the owner of the Bible supposedly caught buying the oil out of Tractor Supply. Yet some people testified that they were physically healed after touching the Bible’s oil. So I asked the Lord why He would remind me of this if the whole thing were a sham. He responded with a question: “What do you think healed them? Was it the oil that healed them?”

I realized it was not the oil. It was their faith. It was the faith of people who believed that if they could reach out, God would meet them. Ultimately, their faith tugged at the heart of God, the ultimate healer.

To order Abby Trivett’s new book, The Power of Suddenly, visit Amazon.com.

So it was with the woman with the issue of blood. Scripture records her saying, “If I may touch His garments, I shall be healed” (Mark 5:28). The woman was so desperate that she believed even touching something belonging to Jesus would bring healing.

What do you think happened next? “Immediately her hemorrhage dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction” (v. 29).

After years of suffering, the woman was healed in an instant because of her faith in Jesus. Faith comes by hearing, and this hearing comes from the Word of God. Clearly, she had heard that Jesus was the Messiah, the One who could bring complete healing and wholeness.

So often, we block our own deliverance by staying stuck in fear, lust, pride, religiosity, or dissociation instead of trusting God fully. Sometimes, the greatest obstacle to healing is not God’s willingness but our hesitation to reach for Him.

Letting go can be scary, and sometimes we may not even be sure how to do it. Start by asking God what He requires of you. He will give you direction. Whether it’s through prayer, declaring His Word, studying Scripture, fasting, or serving others, He will provide the solution for you.

Right after the woman was healed, the Bible says, “At once, Jesus knew within Himself that power had gone out of Him. He turned around in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched My garments?’” (v. 30). Obviously, Jesus knew who touched Him. The point was for her to be seen and known by Him.

The disciples didn’t quite understand this, telling Jesus that many people had been pressing in on Him, touching Him. But Jesus knew her and, with such vigorous love and passion, took this moment to pursue her fully. She came trembling, though there was no reason for it. The next thing that happened was that the woman came before Jesus and fell down, telling Him “the entire truth” (v. 33). She needed Jesus, and she let Him know.

And Jesus said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction” (v. 34). Her suddenly moment did not end with healing alone; it concluded with peace and restoration.

Maybe you need a miracle. All it takes is a mustard seed of faith to completely change a situation. Your suddenly may come after years of waiting, but when it comes, it will be unmistakable. All He desires is that we reach out and grasp the hem of His garment.

Do You Want to Be Well?

Another story that we’ll touch on is one of my personal favorite healing stories. Here, we have a group of
sick and disabled people—some unable to walk, some unable to see, others paralyzed—all lying near a pool believed to have healing powers. Almost like a lottery; whoever entered the water first was the one to receive healing. But God didn’t come just for a few lucky ones to be set free—He came for all, and He was never limited by human systems of access or effort.

Jesus visited this pool and found a man who had been there for thirty-eight years.

Thirty-eight years of bondage.

Thirty-eight years of waiting for God to deliver.

To put this in perspective, that is almost as long as the Israelites wandered in the desert.

Can you imagine spending nearly forty years of your life waiting by a pool, believing the only way you will ever be healed is through a superstitious source of water? I can’t even begin to imagine the mental chains this would have placed on someone over time. All I know is this: Sometimes the wait is painful, but God always has a suddenly moment when chains will break for good, even when we’ve learned to survive without freedom.

Jesus looked at the man and simply asked, “Do you want to be healed?” ( John 5:6).

Why would He ask that? Because everyone wants relief, but not everyone wants the change that healing requires. Healing often demands surrender: letting go of our own ways and familiar patterns, even when those patterns feel safer than the unknown. It requires dying to self and trusting God with the outcome.

The man didn’t answer the question directly. Instead, he gave Jesus every excuse for why he hadn’t been healed yet. Sometimes we try to explain away the miraculous when God wants to do something supernatural in us. Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean God is done working on what He has prepared. He told Jesus why he couldn’t make it to the water and the trauma he had endured from everyone who kept stepping on him. I would be lying if I said I hadn’t done this.

During one season, I felt God asking me to keep moving forward, to keep putting my hand to the plow even when I felt unsure. I realized that sometimes the greater sin is sitting in self-pity instead of believing that movement can be healing.

But that’s not what Jesus asked. Jesus asked whether he wanted to be healed. While healing sometimes demands the impossible of us, God is able to help us, in our weakness, do what we could never do on our own.

So Jesus gave the man a task that would’ve been impossible for him to do on his own: “‘Rise, take up your bed and walk.’ Immediately the man was healed, took up his bed, and walked” ( John 5:8–9).

Ultimately, when it comes to receiving true healing and deliverance, we must be willing to trust God enough to move when He speaks. We must step out of the comfort of what we know—even if that comfort is pain—and believe that He will meet us with the power we lack.

To be delivered means we stop striving in our own strength and trust that God can break every chain that has held us—even the ones we’ve learned to live with.

Abby Trivett is a writer and editor for Charisma Media and has a passion for sharing the gospel through the written word. She holds two degrees from Regent University, a B.A. in Communication with a concentration in Journalism and a Master of Arts in Journalism. She is the author of the new book, The Power of Suddenly: Discover How God Can Change Everything in a Moment, which is available on Amazon.com.

The Roman Inquisition conducted a heresy trial where Galileo was forced to recant his beliefs publicly. He was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. The church refused to accept this theory, citing a literal interpretation of Scripture that holds that Joshua made the sun stand still. It wasn’t until 1822 that the Catholic Church allowed Galileo’s 1632 book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems to be printed, and it was finally removed from their index of forbidden books in 1835. Not until 1992 did Pope John Paul II acknowledge that the church was wrong in persecuting him.

I say this because I believe that the view of the “church” being at the center of the theological universe is equally untrue. God declared His firstborn Son to be Israel: “And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: and I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn” (Exod. 4:22–23).

Even though your firstborn may cause you all kinds of trouble, you can never replace them. Today non-Jews are the branches being grafted into believing Israel, and as it says in Romans 11, we are not to be boastful and high-minded about this. This warning in Romans 11 is referring to the fact that the adopted
children better not think they are any holier or better than the natural children.

An Identity Theft

Many people today have gone through the disaster of identity theft. There is nothing like having your identity stolen and having to prove that you are you. I have heard stories of terrible cases where people had to prove they were still alive and argue with a bank or agency about it.

The most significant identity robbery was of Yeshua’s. In art you will see a Caucasian Jesus, a Black Jesus, a Chinese Jesus, a Mexican Jesus, and even a Native American Jesus. Everyone wants to create God in their image rather than accept the fact that every race has been made in His image.

Today, with the advancement of AI, influencers want to manipulate public attitudes by reproducing AI clones of people saying things they have never said. The concept of fake news has been with us since the beginning of time, but it has grown only more sophisticated. This is why they say that the victor writes history. Look at the changes that have taken place throughout American history. Was Christopher Columbus a good guy or a bad guy?

We are conditioned to believe what we have been taught, and we lean heavily and emotionally in a particular direction. Do we want to erase history and eliminate anything we do not like, such as statues of Civil War generals? How about ISIS, which destroys ancient archaeological sites to create a history that is
more palatable to them?

More than 2,300 years ago, the first example of replacement theology occurred around 168 BC. The Samaritans claimed to be the true Jewish people. But when Antiochus IV Epiphanes came during the historical events of Hanukkah and was ready to destroy the Jews, suddenly, they were no longer faithful Jews. Even today, people claim that the Jews in Israel are not the real Jews.

So many people are having an identity crisis. Among the body of Messiah, some Gentiles want to identify as Jews, wearing Jewish clothing and claiming to be from one of the lost tribes. We need to find our identity in the Messiah.

Among both the extreme Left and Right are some who want to eliminate the Jewish people, and, in the middle, some want to pretend they are Jews. And some Jews do not want anyone to know they are Jewish. Masquerading has been going on for millennia.

Order Mark Biltz’s New Book, “The Final Tyrant” on Amazon.com!

The Bible records how Jacob masqueraded as Esau, Tamar as a prostitute, Joseph as an Egyptian, Esther as a non-Jew, and so forth. To fool believers, the Antichrist will also try to deceive the church through charades. Why did Joseph’s brothers not recognize him when they came to Egypt? It was because Joseph was masquerading as an Egyptian. He looked Egyptian, spoke Egyptian, and followed Egyptian customs.

To this day, for the last 2,000 years, the church has been presenting an Egyptian Jesus to the Jewish people, expecting the Jews to recognize Him. How in the world could the Jewish people accept a Messiah with an English transliteration for a name and who did away with the Torah and their traditions, their calendar, their priesthood, their capital city, and their commandments?

Anyone who still believes the church has replaced the Jewish people will be easily deceived by the Antichrist. This is why this chapter is needed. Today many believe the church has replaced Israel in the plan of God rather than being grafted into God’s plan for Israel. We have to remember the wheat and tares were sown in the same field, and Satan has become the expert at sowing discord within the body of Messiah over the last several thousand years.

Most believers do not realize how prophetic the Book of Ruth is for today. Orpah and Ruth, the two Moabite women, represent the church that is grafted into Israel. In Hebrew the name Ruth means friend; Orpah means the back of the neck or to turn your back on. Orpah ends up giving Naomi a token kiss, turns her back on her, and returns to her pagan gods. Ruth, though, befriends Naomi and works the harvest in Israel from Passover to Pentecost. Through her marriage to Boaz, Ruth descended from King David.

You may not be aware, but rabbinic tradition tells us that just as Ruth descended from David, Orpah descended from Goliath. I believe Ruth represents the faithful church and Orpah the counterfeit church. The final battle in these last days will be between the Goliath/woke church and the David/awakened church over who will stand with the God of Israel.

The major problems from the very beginning were arrogance and anti-Semitism. Did you know the apostle John was once kicked out of the church? Not only that, but all the Jews were also kicked out of the church, along with any Gentile who wanted the Jews to stay. It’s in every Bible, and it is too often overlooked. (See 3 John.)

Luke 22:24–25 describes strife among the disciples over who would be the greatest. Yeshua told them not to be like the Gentiles who always want prominence in order to exercise lordship over others and to exert their authority. The disciples, though, were to exercise servant leadership (v. 26).

If I told you my name was Igor, Paco, or Mohammed, you would probably think you know where I was from. In 3 John 9, the apostle writes that a Gentile named Diotrephes has taken over the synagogue and will not even allow the apostle John to come in! He recognizes no authority but his own. On top of that, Diotrephes won’t even allow John’s brethren (the Jews) to come into the synagogue either. Then we find that he doesn’t allow in other Gentiles who do want the Jews to be allowed in, and he even kicks out of the church all the Gentiles who desire Jews to enter. This assembly was in Asia Minor and most likely near Ephesus.

So now, Gentiles who knew only Greek philosophy as a moral base were teaching the Scriptures, and they didn’t even know Hebrew. Nor were they familiar with the Torah except through a Greek translation, which they were using to try to understand Hebraic concepts.

They also did not understand the Jewish culture or their idioms, and most didn’t even care to. A perfect example is when Peter denied the Messiah three times and the rooster crowed (Luke 22:60–62). Did you know that there was a prohibition against raising chickens or roosters in Jerusalem at that time? Chickens were not acceptable as a sacrifice.

The truth is, just as the words general, captain, or president are titles, the Hebrew word gever, meaning a man or a rooster,1 is also related to Gevini, a title given to the temple crier who would call out three times every morning to tell the people it was time to get ready for the morning service. Many people are familiar with the Muslim call to prayer made over a loudspeaker. In ancient times, the temple crier had the title of the rooster! We still use the idiom today when we talk about a man who acts like the rooster in a hen house. So yes, the rooster crowed, but it wasn’t a rooster. This is not a theological problem but an authenticity problem.

So many things are missed in translations from Greek to English without a Hebrew understanding of the culture. Another example is found in Acts 3:1, where “Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.” Wrong translation! It was at the hour of the prayer. The ninth hour is 3:00 p.m., the time of the evening sacrifice. The prayer at this time was known as the amidah, or the standing prayer, because amidah means to stand. Even back then, it was an ancient prayer written several hundred years earlier. This prayer was prayed three times a day. This means Yeshua prayed this prayer three times a day for His entire life.

I believe 100 percent in the inspiration of the Bible in its original language, which is why you must “study to shew thyself approved” (2 Tim. 2:15). We must fight with everything we have for authenticity. The Bible plainly declares that not one jot or tittle will pass away from the Torah (Matt. 5:18), which refers to the Torah in the Hebrew language. I believe that even in the New Testament, several of the books were originally in Hebrew. It is obvious by the writing style, and when you translate them back into Hebrew, you see poetry that is not seen in any other language.

Pastor Mark Biltz is the founder of El Shaddai Ministries and livestreams his messages every weekend to over 200 cities in twenty nations. He has spoken in over 20 nations and authored several best-selling books such as “Decoding the Antichrist” and “Decoding Jeremiah.” His new book, The Final Tyrant, is available on Amazon.com.

When you’re in the middle of a storm, the one thing the enemy will try to do is keep you from running to Jesus. Fear, panic, and anxiety set in. You have trouble keeping your mind from conjuring up the worst-case scenarios. A storm will do one of two things: it will drive you closer to the Lord, or it will drive you away from Him. The choice is yours.

Some people get angry and bitter, even at God, because of the painful circumstances they find themselves in. When they don’t understand, they pull away and shut God out instead of reaching up through the turbulent waves for His hand. The enemy wants to keep you in fear or distracted by your situation because drawing closer to the Lord in those hard times is how we ultimately find comfort and strength. Those who call out to Jesus let the turbulent waves push them closer to God. Often, they learn to do this after going through multiple storms in life and experiencing God’s faithfulness time and again.

I’m just a down-to-earth Southern girl. I have flaws. I’ve made my share of mistakes. Yet one thing I have done consistently throughout the storms in my life is talk to the Lord.

I don’t always know what the Lord is doing or understand things that hit me out of left field, but I’ve learned that I can trust Him because He’s come through for me so many times. Trusting God is not a theoretical concept for me; it’s my life. God is so alive to me in my everyday life, which is why I talk to Him like I’m talking to my best friend. He is my best friend.

I stay in an attitude of prayer, so I’m in an ongoing conversation with God, one that never stops. The Bible says to “pray without ceasing” (1 Thess. 5:17). God doesn’t want to be part of your life; He wants to be your life, “for in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

God lets us ask Him anything. I often say, “Lord, here we are again. I need to hear from You. Where do we go from here?” I know that wherever I go, He is with me, guiding me. Just as the Israelites followed the cloud by day and the fire by night when they were in the desert, I want Him leading me, every step. I’m not leading Him; He’s leading me, and I’m following Him because He knows where I’m going and I don’t.

One indication that you’re walking with God is that you feel His supernatural peace—a peace that passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7). That means it’s a peace that doesn’t make sense at times. Peace isn’t the absence of difficulty or pain; it’s the presence of God amid those difficulties. Peace is a person in the storm with us, holding us, carrying us, and calming the turbulence within us. The Bible says, “For He Himself is our peace” (Eph. 2:14). And the psalmist wrote, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea” (Ps. 46:1–2, ESV). Jesus is God. He is our peace. Run to Him for refuge, strength, and peace. He’s real, alive, and fully present, even though our circumstances often scream the opposite.

Only the Lord can give us peace and strength in the midst of our storms. If I were to tell you otherwise, I’d be misrepresenting myself and the Lord. From an early age, I started walking, talking, and singing with Jesus. I thought that was just a normal thing for Christians to do. I assumed if He loved me and lived inside me, He wanted to talk to me. And I was right! If Jesus wants to live inside me through the Holy Spirit, why wouldn’t He want to speak to me? Henry Blackaby wrote in his classic book Experiencing God: “God speaks to His people. When He speaks, what does He reveal? Throughout the Scriptures, when God spoke, it was to reveal something about Himself, His purposes, or His ways. God’s revelations are designed to bring you into a love relationship with Him.”

A love relationship with God. It sounds so simple because it is simple! God’s ways are not complicated. Jesus said unless we become as little children, we can’t enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 18:3). The kingdom of heaven is more than an eternal realm. It’s a love relationship with Jesus here and now. Praying to the Father, Jesus said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3). Real, eternal life starts with knowing the Lord and is sustained through knowing Him, and to delve into the depths of that relationship with Him, we must become as little children. That doesn’t mean we are to be childish or naïve. There is a difference. Being like little children means running to Him, hopping in His lap, enjoying His presence, and talking to Him. I guess I’ve always been a child at heart when it comes to my faith. I often say, “Lord, it’s Joni here—Your girl.”

As we grow older, however, and life gets tougher and more hectic, we make our relationship with God more complicated than it should be. Just talk to Him and continue to talk to Him. That’s what He asks. He sees and hears. He can handle our questions and emotions. He created us to be in a personal relationship with Him. Don’t shut Him out. Run to Him and talk to Him, especially during the storms. This is how we develop the kind of intimate fellowship with the Lord that will empower and guide us through every storm we will face.

If you are reading this and don’t know Jesus intimately, take a moment and invite Him into your heart. Repeat this prayer:

Jesus, forgive me. Come into my heart. Be my Lord and Savior. I surrender my life to You. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name, amen.

He Is So Much Bigger Than You Think

Another amazing thing about God is that He can take the most unexpected things, even tragic things, and use them to miraculously change your life to accomplish the new and fresh purposes He has for you. God isn’t surprised by anything that happens to us. He has a purpose for our lives and uses the storms to build His character in us. God is infinite and all- knowing, and He does not fit into our little boxes. He can do far more than we think He can do—“exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20).

I never could have imagined my life or ministry without Marcus. Yet when Marcus had completed his race on the earth, the Lord called him home. Through that heartbreaking storm, God did something I could not have dreamed up. It was as if one day I was facing the most difficult journey of my life, and the next I was surprised by what God revealed for the next chapter of my life. His plans are always amazing and always good. We just have to trust those plans. Talk to God and listen. His ways and ideas are far better than the ones we have for ourselves. As God said in Isaiah 55:8–9, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.… For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

I’ve always wanted the Lord’s best for my life, from way back when I was a child picking up kids for church on the bus with my dad to when I was twenty years old writing that letter surrendering my life to Him. God is faithful to fulfill that which concerns you. If you commit your ways to Him, He will take you at your word. And when He speaks to you, He wants you to obey—not out of fear but out of love for Him. Even when we mess up, He, the almighty God, can turn it around for our good. It’s crazy how He can do that.

God’s grace, His ways, and His plans are far greater than we can comprehend. He is always at work and never sleeps. As I said earlier, I don’t understand how He does it, but God is able to be fully present with every other person and me throughout time simultaneously without being diminished one little bit. It blows my finite mind.

My other secret weapon when going through a storm is worship. I’m talking about throwing up my hands and praising God at the top of my lungs. It takes faith to believe God is in control and acknowledge Him in the midst of chaos and pain.

It’s next to impossible to praise God with your whole heart while harboring fear, doubt, or unbelief. David thought worship was so important that he had worshippers in the temple around the clock. This kind of worship brings joy. When we worship Him, God shows up in our storms, just as He did for Paul and Silas in Acts 16.

After the residents of Jerusalem had finished rebuilding the wall under Nehemiah’s leadership, they were all gathered for a day of worship and dedication to the Lord. It had been a long, hard battle as they built with bricks in one hand and swords in the other because of the enemy’s constant attacks. Nehemiah exhorted the people, saying, “Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). Other translations say, “Do not be grieved” (ESV, MEV), “Don’t be sad” (CEB, CEV), or, “Don’t be dejected” (NLT). People who were building a wall while keeping one eye out for the enemy, sword in hand, might not have expected to hear a message about joy. But Nehemiah said, “The joy of the Lord is your strength” (emphasis added). Get this now. It’s important.

The joy of the Lord equals strength. No joy, no strength—just like no worship, no joy. Nehemiah said this in a situation in which the people were facing grief, sorrow, and relentless attacks from their enemies. Of course, Nehemiah wasn’t telling us not to grieve or feel sorrow when we experience tragedy or the death of a loved one. Nehemiah was saying our strength comes when we go to the Lord and experience His joy, even in the midst of our grief and sorrow. If we lose our joy in the Lord, we lose our strength. But what does it mean to have joy? It’s not being happy and chipper all the time or walking around saying, “Praise the Lord,” in heartbreaking situations.

Joy is different from happiness. Happiness is dependent on our circumstances, but we can be filled with joy even in the most turbulent times.

To order Joni Lamb’s book, Through the Storm, visit Amazon.com.

Joy comes from the presence of God, so our strength likewise comes from the presence of God. “In Your presence is fullness of joy,” David wrote in Psalm 16:11. We don’t have to be moved when the storms rage around us. Our flesh can rest in hope. If there is “fullness of joy” in the Lord’s presence and “the joy of the Lord is [our] strength,” that means our strength for life and surviving storms is found in God’s presence. David knew this well. He knew how it felt when storms and caves and enemies tried to take him out, yet he always sought God’s presence for joy and strength.

In Psalm 42, David wrote: “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, ‘Where is your God?’” (vv. 1–3, emphasis added). David shed tears while those around him were saying, “Where is your God?” That’s what the enemy will whisper, and your flesh will scream when it looks like you’re going under. David knew better than to give up. He knew his joy and strength came from being in the Lord’s presence, so that’s where he ran.

Running into God’s presence and finding strength and joy in the middle of the most difficult and painful trials is not some pie-in-the-sky, self-help, positive-thinking gimmick. It’s for real life. I’m reminded of the late Corrie ten Boom, who, along with her entire family, was arrested and imprisoned during the Holocaust for hiding and protecting Jews. The ten Boom family was sent to a concentration camp in Scheveningen, and all but three were released: Corrie, her sister Betsie, and their father, Casper. Corrie’s father died only ten days after their arrest, but Corrie and her sister, like so many prisoners, were herded onto cattle cars like animals, stripped, and starved. They witnessed people being exterminated and knew they could be next. Betsie eventually died in prison.

I once read a series of quotes attributed to Corrie ten Boom that is incredible considering all the suffering she endured: “Jesus did not promise to change the circumstances around us. He promised great peace and pure joy to those who would learn to believe that God actually controls all things.” “When we are powerless to do a thing, it is a great joy that we can come and step inside the ability of Jesus.” “Joy runs deeper than despair.” What incredible words written by someone who experienced torment most of us can’t even fathom. Could this be true? Corrie ten Boom was sustained in the most unimaginable horror by joy that came from the Lord’s presence.

If you’re in a storm and are at your lowest point, shift your focus to the Lord. Begin to thank Him for who He is, what He has done, and what He will do! I think about the situation with the tower in Dallas. Marcus and I were moving forward in obedience and faith. God had a tower hidden away just for His purposes, to reach people with the good news of Jesus Christ. Although most people thought we were crazy for attempting to build a station in a market as challenging as Dallas, God supernaturally made a way. He is the waymaker. Our thankfulness throws open the door for the hand of God to move. Never underestimate God’s supernatural power to accomplish what He has called you to do.

God has us in the right place at the right time for His good purposes, and He has equipped us to do the work He has set before us to do. Through the storms, God revealed things in me that I had not seen or known. I can look back and see that through the storms and snakebites, God had a master plan for my life. He was guiding and preparing me for what was coming. Ask the Lord to show you the gift He has put within you, and let Him develop it. It may surprise you. All you have to do is surrender all and be obedient; He will do the rest.

When the storm clouds begin to clear, you will see that God has something new for you. Storms give us an opportunity to learn and grow. They may give us a new direction for our lives or a new perspective on our business or ministry. Maybe a new season is around the corner, and you just acquired the tools you need to navigate it. God loves you and wants His best for you. He is working in and through all things to bring about that good thing.

Pause and Listen

You may know what it’s like to go through storms of personal betrayal or to think God has let you down. After those kinds of experiences, you may feel as though you’ll never trust again. Your flesh screams out for someone to validate how deeply you were wronged. It’s in those times that you need to take a little pause and listen. Give the Holy Spirit an opportunity to speak to you. His voice is so quiet and still that you can’t hear Him if you’re indulging your anger. I don’t mean to say you shouldn’t feel angry; I mean, you shouldn’t act out in anger. Ask the Lord what you should do, and listen to Him. Surrender the situation to Him. Pray in the Spirit, and follow His promptings. This makes all the difference in the storm.

One final lesson that the Lord has taught me over and over again while walking through storms is that He will never ever leave me or forsake me. People, friends, coworkers, and even family will disappoint you while you’re in the storm. That’s why you must keep your eyes on Jesus. He, not the opinions of those who surround you, is your source. You may see seasons shift, changing your relationships with certain individuals. Just as the leaves fall from the trees during winter seasons, change inevitably happens, and people naturally fall out of our lives. Not everyone can continue with you on the journey God has mandated for you. That’s OK. Bless them and release them. As I’ve already said, God works all things for our good. That includes the relationships in our lives.

Losing Marcus was a huge storm in my life. Although I knew he was in the arms of Jesus, his death was just so shocking and painful. Then I felt such loneliness. Those who have lost loved ones understand these feelings. All I can say is that God gave me supernatural grace and strength to continue the ministry despite my grief. My family and friends held my arms up along the way.

I thank the Lord for the prophetic words I received that encouraged and fortified me. The Holy Spirit was truly my Comforter. I pray for each person who is hurting that the Comforter will touch you in a way that encourages you and brings healing to your soul. You can trust God. He is faithful.

Really, it all boils down to this: in John 15, Jesus calls those who follow Him His friends. What did I do in my storms? I called my friends. We cried. We talked. At times, we just sat in each other’s presence. That’s what friends do. That’s grace. That’s Jesus. He’s always the first friend I call, and He’s never too busy to answer.

Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.

Joni Lamb was the president of Daystar Television Network, co-founded with her late husband, Marcus Lamb. The network reaches over 110 million homes in the U.S. and over 5 billion people worldwide. She was executive producer and host of her daily talk show, “Joni Table Talk,” which earned 10 Telly Awards, three Lone Star Emmy Awards and five Daytime Emmy nominations. Lamb also co-hosted Daystar’s daily, live flagship broadcast “Ministry Now,” with her husband, Dr. Doug Weiss. Her book, Through the Storm, is available on Amazon.com.

Unconfronted pain and trauma do not simply fade with time. They don’t disappear because we love Jesus or dissolve because we’ve been born again. Left unaddressed, they continue to inform how we show up in the world—how we relate, communicate, cope and survive. Pain becomes the unseen narrator of our lives.

We also want to acknowledge this up front: Everybody’s story is not the same. Not everyone who struggles with same-sex attraction has the same kind of pain. We are not interested in reducing anyone’s story to a single origin. Some people can point to specific traumatic moments, while others cannot. Some experienced abuse. Others experienced neglect, rejection, or simply silence—the absence of someone saying this isn’t your fault.

But after talking with so many people battling same-sex attraction, we know that we all have experienced some form of pain or trauma, and it has shaped us in ways we may not fully understand yet. For some of us, the pain was so deep or happened so early that we don’t even remember it. The mind learned how to survive by blocking it out. But even when the memory is gone, the impact remains. Our bodies remember. What we cannot recall still influences us.

We have heard time and time again about the childhood moments with people we trusted when lines were crossed. At the time, we didn’t always know what was happening. Some experiences felt confusing; others felt normal, even consensual. We didn’t yet understand that what felt “OK” really wasn’t OK. For many of us, it wasn’t until later in life that we realized something had been taken from us.

Yet pain and trauma do not come only through sexual experiences. They can be inflicted verbally, physically, or emotionally. For some, simply existing with same-sex attraction—and dealing with the judgment, rejection, and isolation that came with it—was traumatic in itself.

We did not all respond to this trauma the same way. Some of us became curious and felt a draw toward same-sex attraction. Others spent years womanizing, trying to prove that what happened to us wasn’t who we were. Some numbed themselves. Others learned to perform.

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We have walked with hundreds of men over the years. In one men’s group we are part of, an anonymous survey revealed that over 40 percent of the men secretly struggled with same-sex attraction. Pain pushed many of these men into hiding, convincing them there was a part of them too dangerous to be seen.

Sometimes it isn’t only same-sex attraction that keeps us hidden. It’s what trauma awakened in us desires and fantasies so uncomfortable that we wouldn’t dare confess them to God, let alone to other people. Even in spaces that claim to be open, these desires can feel too dark and shameful to name. And yet we have to sit with this truth: Many of these desires were born not from rebellion but from pain, confusion, exposure and survival.

As if all this weren’t enough, we also have to acknowledge the trauma created by the internal war itself. It is painful to love God while fighting something inside you that feels powerful and relentless. You wake up every day trying to surrender, trying to obey, and trying to believe, while everything in you seems to pull in the opposite direction. This conflict is exhausting, it is traumatizing, and over time it can leave us weary and confused.

This is not about reliving your pain. It is about understanding how pain shaped the ways you learned to survive. It is about facing what has been hurting you, not to shame you but to free you. Trauma does not negate the truth that you really have been born again. God really did make you new. But unaddressed pain can slow the sanctifying work God desires to do in your life.

You are not broken; you were hurt. And the same God who saved you is patient enough to heal the places that are still bleeding.

Living Like Mephibosheth

If you are honest, you have been hemorrhaging since you were a child. There is a way children experience the world that adults often forget. As a child you do not have context. You have only momentary experiences. However, those moments make you feel what you believe.

In Scripture there is a man named Mephibosheth. As a child he was dropped by the one who was responsible for carrying him. The fall left him disabled in both feet (2 Sam. 4:4). His injury wasn’t due to rebellion, nor was it a decision he made. It was a wound inflicted by someone who was supposed to protect him. And that moment marked him for the rest of his life.

By the time we see Mephibosheth as an adult, he is living in a place called Lo-debar, a name that literally means no pasture, no word, no nothing (2 Sam. 9:4–5). It was a barren place. Though he was royalty by birth, he lived like someone who had been forgotten.

This story mirrors the reality of many men battling same-sex attraction today. Something happened to us
early—a fall, an experience we did not understand, or a series of experiences that shaped us before we were mature enough to process them. And though we may not remember all of it clearly, the impact followed us. What happened to the boy shaped the man.

As we’ve shared, for some of us, the label gay was spoken over us because of the way we walked, talked, gestured, or expressed emotion. People started calling us something we didn’t even understand, and the bullying, jokes, and name-calling only reinforced it. When a child hears something long enough, he begins to wonder whether it’s true. Questions arise, not from genuine desire but from repetition. Identity wasn’t discovered. It was suggested. And over time that suggestion begins to feel like confirmation.

For others, pain came through boundaries that were crossed too early. The experiences didn’t feel violent or wrong in the moment because we didn’t yet know what wrong was. For children who were hypersexualized by abuse, interactions with neighbors, cousins, or friends didn’t always register as abuse at the time. Some moments felt confusing. Some felt normal. Some even felt wanted.

It was only later that we realized something had been taken from us. Growing up and suddenly understanding that what happened wasn’t OK is traumatic in itself. Realizing you were hurt before you knew you were allowed to say no creates a deep internal fracture.

Physical abuse does the same. Being punished with violence or living in fear of the next outburst teaches the body that love is unsafe. Verbal abuse leaves marks no one sees. Being mocked, harshly corrected, or torn down teaches a child who he is not allowed to be. Emotional neglect—being unseen, unheard, or unprotected—teaches a child that his needs do not matter.

Sometimes the deepest trauma isn’t what happened. It’s what never happened—the absence of affirmation, guidance, and someone saying, “This isn’t your fault.”

We’ve named many of the pains and traumas we faced growing up, but there is one experience many people overlook: early exposure to pornography. Pornography is often treated as innocent curiosity. But it is not neutral. Early exposure may not leave visible scars, but it can be deeply traumatic. Being shown pornography or discovering it as a child is a form of sexual exploitation of the developing mind and body.

Porn becomes a private teacher. It introduces sexual images before the brain is capable of processing them. It shapes desire before discernment ever has a chance to form. It floods a developing mind with stimulation that it was never designed to handle, wiring arousal to confusion, secrecy, and shame. And the child doesn’t know how to tell anyone, so they learn how to cope but never how to heal.

Then one day, the man looks up and realizes he is Mephibosheth—alive but living in Lo-debar. He’s still
breathing, still functioning, and still spiritually royalty, yet he’s emotionally stalled and psychologically stuck in the place his pain carried him.

Arrested Development

You cannot become the man God has called you to be without addressing the boy you once were. This is not to blame or shame him but to finally tell the truth about what he has dealt with alone. What happened to you wasn’t fair. But healing begins when you stop pretending that it didn’t affect you, because until you can identify where you were hurt, you will continue to live from the place and stage of development that was formed in pain.

You can be sincere, committed, and surrendered, and you can still respond to the world like the boy who learned how to survive before he ever learned how to be safe. Growing older doesn’t mean we grow whole. Time passed, but there were parts of us that never moved forward because they were never tended to.

There is a kind of brokenness that doesn’t look broken at first. You grow up. You get older. You function. You work. You serve. You love God. And then something happens, and your reaction feels bigger than the situation. Something small feels threatening. A look, a tone, or a perceived rejection sends you spiraling. You don’t understand why it hits you so hard. You just know what you feel. This is what arrested development looks like.

When pain or trauma happens at a specific point in your life and goes unaddressed, part of you stops growing there. Your body keeps aging. Your responsibilities increase. But emotionally, mentally and relationally, something inside you is still operating from the age when the wound occurred.

So you end up with grown men carrying the unmet needs of boys. This may show up as a deep fear of abandonment, an intense longing for affirmation, an inability to set boundaries—or setting boundaries that are too rigid—a constant need to keep the peace, or a tendency to appease rather than express. These aren’t adult responses. They are evidence that the needs of our younger selves still require care.

When we look at it through this lens, we begin to see that many of our adult patterns are not acts of rebellion against God. They are attempts to soothe the wounds of a younger self. People pleasing; avoidance; extreme submission; the sexualization of relationships; wanting to feel chosen, safe, wanted, and seen—these behaviors didn’t form because we were evil. They formed because at some point they worked. They kept us safe and connected. They kept us from being abandoned again. But what protected us as boys can imprison us as men.

This is where the story of Mephibosheth continues to speak. He was injured as a child, and though he grew older, the effects of the fall followed him into adulthood. He lived with the posture of someone shaped by what happened early—royal by birth but living as if he expected nothing.

That is what arrested development does. It doesn’t stop time. It suspends growth.

For men who wrestle with same-sex attraction, identifying this is especially important because when part of you is stuck at a younger age, sexual desire often expresses itself from that stage of development. It becomes less about lust or attraction and more about finding the safety, affirmation, or connection that was missing when it mattered most.

This is why healing is emotional and not just spiritual.

Sanctification does not only correct behavior, but it also matures what pain froze. God does not shame the boy who adapted to survive. He reparents the heart and teaches the parts of us that never learned how to be safe, trust, and rest.

While that process is beautiful, it is also deeply disorienting. You may love God deeply and still feel emotionally young in certain areas. That does not mean regeneration failed. It means sanctification is touching a deeper layer.

Arrested development is not permanent. It is interruptible. You are not broken because you are struggling. Some parts of you simply stopped growing when pain told them to, and God is patient enough to meet you there.

Zaire Willis is the co-founder of Brand New You and Executive Pastor of VEIR–The Church at Huntsville, bringing excellence and compassion across worship, administration, and discipleship. Shaped by his own journey of deliverance, he mentors men toward freedom, healing, and purpose rooted in God’s Word. He lives in Huntsville, Alabama, with his wife.

Reginald Robinson, Jr. is the founder of Brand New You and Senior Pastor of VEIR–The Church at Huntsville, known for strategic leadership, prophetic insight, and a heart for discipleship. Formerly in urban planning and workforce development, he now mentors men to break cycles, grow in emotional intelligence, and walk in God-given purpose. He lives in Huntsville, Alabama, with his wife and three children.

Willis and Robinson Jr.’s new book, Born Gay, Born Again: A Journey of Identity, Faith, and Freedom is available on Amazon.com.