Strength in the Struggle

Spiritual breakthroughs rarely happen immediately — just ask John Wimber, who prayed for 10 months before witnessing a healing, or Todd White, who persisted for over four years before seeing results. Their stories reveal a powerful truth: we sometimes have to engage in spiritual resistance training. Just as muscles grow through resistance, our faith can be strengthened through doubts, delays, and disappointments. Even Jesus prayed twice to fully heal a blind man, showing that sometimes miracles unfold step by step. So, if you feel stuck, don’t give up — you’re building spiritual muscle! Declare this: “I am getting stronger every day in the spirit and I won’t back down.” Share this episode with someone battling discouragement, and let’s push through resistance together.

Listen: Tom Petty — I Won’t Back Down

Chapters

• 0:00 Happy Thursday!
• 0:43 Contending for Healing
• 2:40 Jesus Prayed Twice for Healing
• 4:42 Spiritual Strength Training
• 7:57 Today's Kus Word

Transcript

Michele: 0:00

It's Thursday, March 13th, and this is Today's Kus Word. Welcome to Today's Kus Word. Your five minutes a day... Oh, who am I kidding? Most of these episodes are much longer than five minutes, but anyway, you can join me, Michele Kus, every Monday through Friday as I drop some powerful little grace bombs that are probably gonna be longer than five minutes. It's true, right? Happy Thursday. Who else feels like kicking in the gates of hell today?

Michele: 0:33

So this past Tuesday night I was hanging out with my glorious small group at church. Shout out to all you awesome women of God. And we were talking specifically about praying for healing and how important it is to keep pressing in and contending for healing even when we see little or no progress when we pray. And we talked about the fact that John Wimber, who founded the Vineyard movement, prayed for people for like 10 months before he witnessed his first physical healing. So, despite not seeing any results right away, he persisted and he pressed in and he kept going and he kept believing in God's power to heal. Todd White is another great example of this. So Todd shares very openly about how he prayed for people for healing for like four and a half years before he saw his first physical healing, four and a half years! His story is a powerful example of persistence and radical faith that he's continuing to pray and pray and pray for people daily, despite not seeing any results at all. I mean wow. So Todd often shares how he went through this season of pushing against this discouragement and doubt and how it ultimately shaped his unwavering belief in God's desire to heal people and to love people. So you might have your own story of how you prayed and you went after something for weeks or months or years or decades before you saw a breakthrough. Or maybe you're still waiting to see your breakthrough, maybe you're still pressing in, maybe you're still in that season, maybe you're pushing against discouragement or doubt. Think about Jesus. So here is God in the flesh, had to pray for a man twice for healing in one story. You can find that story in Mark, chapter 8, verses 22 through 26.

Michele: 2:54

So in this passage Jesus heals a blind man at Bethsaida. But the healing actually unfolds in stages. So at first Jesus spits on the man's eyes, you know, which is always an inviting way to start. He lays hands on him and asks do you see anything? The man looks up and he says I see people. They look like trees walking around. So his vision is partially restored. That's encouraging, but it's not all the way there. So Jesus placed his hands on the man's eyes again, and this time his sight is completely restored and he sees everything clearly. This, it's the only recorded instance in the Gospels. There may have been more, but it's the only one that was recorded in the Gospels where Jesus actually prays for someone in two stages, and we can see from that that healing sometimes can be a process. It's not always this instant event, and it shows that Jesus is compassionate. He's persistent. He did not want to leave this man halfway healed and so he stayed with him until the healing was complete.

Michele: 4:09

So even Jesus models tenacity in prayer, just like Todd White, John Wimber. There's this tenacity and it encourages us to keep pressing in, even when we don't see immediate results or full results right away. We have to have a certain amount of grrr when we are going after a breakthrough or healing. Some people will call it grit or tenacity or perseverance, but I just call it grrr. So my, my favorite form of exercise is strength training. I am not a runner, y'all. Unless I'm being chased by a bear, I am not going to be out there running just for fun, but if you give me a barbell, I will deadlift that thing and bench press that thing all day long.

Michele: 5:03

I love strength training, I love building muscle and muscles grow when they are put in front of resistance. Lifting weights creates these tiny little tears, these tiny little injuries inside the muscle fibers. And after you rest and have a good, clean, high-protein diet, something amazing happens the muscles repair themselves. But more than repair, the muscles actually rebuild stronger than before. So spiritually, we go through these trials, we have temptations, we have opposition. Maybe all of hell is coming against you right now and you pray and you see nothing. And it puts these tiny tears, these tiny injuries, into your faith muscles. It could be tiny tears of discouragement, tiny tears of doubt, tiny tears of hope deferred. And what you need to do is take a rest, take a break, have a good, clean, high-protein, spiritual diet filling up on scripture, on belief, on good declarations, prophetic words, good books, the encouraging words of others and your faith muscles not only get repaired, but they are strengthened, and then you can get back in there and pray again, and again, and again.

Michele: 6:44

So when a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it has to push and struggle and fight its way out of that cocoon so it doesn't just kind of crack open and just fly out of there. It has to fight its way out, but in so doing, the wings of that butterfly are becoming stronger and stronger and stronger so that it's going to be able to fly. If that cocoon just cracked open like an egg, that butterfly would never leave the ground. The wings would be too weak to fly. But because of that resistance, that fighting to get out of that cocoon, those wings are strong and ready to fly. So if you feel like all of hell is coming against you right now, I have two things for you to do.

Michele: 7:37

Number one go find in the show notes I'm going to link the song by Tom Petty called I Won't Back Down. That's going to be your anthem for this season and I want you to say Today's Kus Word and here it is Grrr, just kidding. Today's Kus Word goes like this: I am getting stronger every day in the spirit and I won't back down. One more time. I am getting stronger every day in the spirit and I won't back down. All right, that's what I got for you today.

Michele: 8:22

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and, if you did, please share it with a friend who needs to hear this message. I bet you have one. I bet you have at least one friend who needs to hear this message. And remember to shoot me a text message. We are an audience participation podcast and I want to know how you're doing, so tap the link down in the show notes that says Text Michele and let me know that you are not backing down. Thanks so much for joining me today and I will see you again tomorrow.