Losing the Cape: How Jesus Healed Me

For those who have been following my personal health journey over these past months, I wanted to give a big update. In the closing months of 2023, I found myself wrestling with a sudden sense of fatigue. I was finding myself worn out on many afternoons and falling asleep early on many nights, a rarity for my active lifestyle. For a long time prior to this, I held the regular rhythms of jogging a 5k distance multiple times a week and had been mindful of nutrition. As a pastor and author, I faced a good deal of stress and had long been trying to slow my pace, but had physically felt fine until hitting this sudden wall.

Fast forward to March of this year. I had just finished writing a book I’d been writing for 7 and a half years, a life message that I couldn’t wait to share with the world. I signed with an amazing literary agent (who I now have the joy of calling my dear sister and friend) and we submitted the book to virtually every major Christian publishing house for their consideration. And almost immediately, my health plummeted.

At random times of the day, I felt the energy drain from my body. It was completely unpredictable with no relation to any discernible activity on my part. Sometimes, mere moments after a full night’s sleep, I would crash again. On my morning jogs, I battled dizziness, until I didn’t have the strength to jog at all. I told myself it was just a temporary symptom from the “push” of finishing the book and that life would soon resume to normal. I was wrong. 

As the weeks wore on, I got worse. I went to the doctor, who ran tests and discovered a slow heart rate and abnormal levels in my bloodwork. On Good Friday, I was leading worship at an event on our city’s waterfront when something “buzzed” throughout my chest and stomach. I was sent to the hospital, where Jill and I stayed until the wee hours of the morning. Many more tests were run and the mystery deepened, but there were no good answers.

The following week, my doctor placed me on the “auto-immune spectrum.” I changed my diet: no sugar, no flour, no refined pastas or processed foods…no coffee! I took 5 or 6 vitamins to boost nutrients I was said to be lacking. It helped, but I wasn’t getting better. In a matter of weeks, I had gone from finishing a book and running 5k’s to not getting out of bed some days.

My soul was good, but my body boasted few vibrant days. My friends lamented how my jovial nature seemed to be suppressed. I just didn’t have the energy. My wife worried. My kids worried. My mom worried. My co-pastors and church worried. So many friends (including many of YOU) prayed. I will never be able to fully express my gratitude, feeling so seen and loved as a brother. 

While I knew part of my problem was physical, I sensed strongly that there was a significant emotional contributor at work…like something in my soul had broken and I couldn’t operate as normal. I began to notice how my symptoms escalated in stressful situations (which had been commonplace over the previous six years of the re-birthing of our church). On two occasions, I had to stop ministering to someone abruptly to lay down in order to keep from passing out. 

I changed the pace of my life. I became very reflective. I took a hard look at everything. In May, I went away with our pastors for an annual 3 day retreat, a much anticipated time to connect, dream, pray, and hear God. At that time, many things in the church and life were going beautifully, but I was also grieving. A number of families who were dear friends were no longer at our church. Some moved away. Some were sent into a beautiful new season of ministry. Some simply left without warning. There were also some deep wrestlings of heartbreak and disappointment, coupled with the ongoing burden I felt for some pressing financial and ministry needs among my co-pastors that were always on my mind. 

On the first night of our retreat, all the pain I didn’t know I was holding came pouring out. I told my friends how alone and overwhelmed I felt. I wept as I confessed the ways I felt I had failed. I shared about the burden I felt in the western church’s application of “Lead Pastor,” which placed everything on the shoulders of one person, when I was just one little part of the Body. I’d never felt this weight before I took the seat in 2019. My co-pastors were so kind; true brothers and sisters, spiritual father and spiritual mother. In our shared vulnerability, something lifted in my soul.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I began to buzz with the possibility of a church more fully built on Jesus as our leader. In the wee hours of the morning, I penned a bold challenge to the paradigm I’d helped to shape. (You can read that here.)  The next day, sitting with my co-pastors, I laid down the title of “Lead Pastor” and everything I felt it necessarily entailed, celebrating Jesus as the Leader of his Church. Understand, I didn’t resign. I realigned, laying down every false mantle and every superhero cape I’d donned to try to be the rescuer of everything, returning to the seat I was made for: Son. 

The other pastors, all of them, followed suit. Weeping and celebrating, we laid down all we thought we needed to rescue and hold together, all of our striving, our running, our “BUSY.” We re-affirmed our calling as overseers, ALL IN, but ready to be led on a new path of multifaceted leadership with our arms linked and our eyes on Jesus. It was, and continues to be, incredible. I left the retreat with renewed hope…but my physical health remained unchanged. 

Fast forward to the last week of July. Two longtime friends, Reese and Susie, returned to our church after an extended time away. As we were catching up, I shared my health struggles and they immediately had a word for me. Susie had been recently miraculously healed of a serious battle with cancer, so I was all ears. They shared that all of the healing we need happened on the Cross, meaning that MY healing was already complete in the heavenly realms. They challenged me to change my agreement from seeking healing to receiving a finished work I simply hadn’t seen yet. Something clicked for me and I did just that. 

That afternoon, I left with 75 incredible students, leaders, and families from our church for a national Fine Arts convention. At an evening service in the middle of the week, they stopped the service to pray for those needing healing. A number of our students and leaders came around me and prayed for about 20 minutes. There in the arena, I felt something change in me. It was as if God said, “it is going to be different from here.”

I went the remainder of the week without issue. The following Sunday back at church, Reese was waiting for me. He’d been praying all week and sensed something from God. Gently, he shared that he heard that my struggle was tied to the “fear of man.” As I got still in prayer, Jesus said, “There are so many things you are demanding that you get right. You love people deeply and hate disappointing them, and have taken on burdens I never intended.” Like a highlight reel, he showed me all the places I’d been striving to secure breakthroughs for my friends, my family, our church, and our city. He showed me where I have worked way too hard to make people value one another or to value me. I sensed him say,

“You have tried to put every broken thing on your shoulders to fix it instead of laying it before the Fixer of all things.”

I repented for the fear of man and immediately heard him say, “I healed you in the arena. In love, I am showing you how to not ever go back there.”

I am not exaggerating when I say that, from that moment, it was like a veil was lifted. My energy has returned. The dizziness is gone. The fatigue has dissipated. I am running 5 days a week in a body and soul that feels like it can BREATHE again! After 8 months of deep struggle, I stand today to announce with complete authority:

JESUS. HEALED. ME. 

I come today not as an author or pastor, but merely desiring to be a mirror. I come in weakness to say: 

I lived like I was a superhero…and I failed. 

I tried to put Jesus’ church on my shoulders…and it almost broke me. 

I underestimated his power and affection for his creation, and seriously overestimated my own. 

In weakness and vulnerability, Jesus came near, and HE was enough. I am driven and I want to see the world change. I am passionate and long to be on the front lines of wherever God would call. I burn for the gospel and want to be found faithful. But I’m not the savior of anything…and that’s GOOD NEWS!

I’ve come to lose the Superman cape. In the Kingdom of God, there are no superheroes, no rock stars, no celebrities, no mega-leaders we all hold in awe. There are only sons and daughters of a King who is worthy of ALL glory and honor and power, forever. 

If we’re willing to get honest, he’s ready to take all of the false burdens we’ve assumed in the pursuit of worth, purpose, or even misguided attempts to build his Kingdom on earth. Jesus builds his church. We are simply called to follow him in the way of love. I am convinced that this will be the ground where healing reigns and revival falls. 

Reflection Questions:

• What burdens or responsibilities have you placed  on your shoulders that you need to relinquish?

• Where do you need healing in your body, your soul, or your spirit? Take a moment to surrender and receive. I’m praying for you, friend.