Healing, protection, sleep

[Chrysostom]

The prayer you offer for your son is a right and urgent one, for this is truly a battle. You ask for a sound mind and peaceful sleep, and well you should, for the state you describe is a kind of waking slumber of the soul, a drunkenness not of wine but of tumultuous thoughts. Consider what has been said: it is possible to sleep while awake, by doing nothing good, and vice is a drunkenness where one sees things that are not as if they were. The terrors and fantasies that trouble him are these visions, and they hold no firm substance. This is a night of the soul, but it is a night over which we are not without power. For it has been given to us that to be in the day depends on ourselves; it is in our power always to watch and be sober.

Therefore, rouse yourself, and do not merely ask, but act as one standing steadfast and unmovable. The suffering depends then on ourselves, and not on any other. The sleep of wickedness and the shutting of the eyes of the soul is not of nature, but of our own choice. Yet your son in this affliction is not fully his own master; the enemy has cast a stupor upon him. And if the day find us sleeping, we are open to the attacks of all enemies, both men and devils. But remember, He that keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. Cry out to Him, as the disciples did in the storm, for the Master who slept upon the pillow in the fore part of the ship is able to rebuke the wind and the waves of the mind.

So do not be confounded. The Lord calleth what we see as dissolution ‘bountiful dealing,’ saying, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.” Your son is not beyond the Shepherd’s voice. Pray with this confidence, not as one wailing for the dead, but as one commanding the shadows to flee in the name of the Lord. Put your hand to this work also by pulling up the thorns of worldly anxiety that may feed this condition, and cast yourself upon the true and abiding things. Let your own life be a sober watchfulness, a wall of prayer about him. For the protection you seek is from the One who will certainly call His own, even those not yet visibly of this fold, and He will bring them to a sound mind, which is the mind of Christ.

 

[Silas]

Your prayer for your son rises with the same heartfelt cry that so many parents have brought to Jesus, and Scripture reminds us that He is never indifferent to such pleas. When He walked among us, He healed every kind of disease and cast out every oppressing spirit. There was no condition beyond His authority, not a fever, not a withered limb, not a mind tormented by darkness. The power that calmed the storm and commanded demons is the same power you are calling on, and that power is unchanged. So do not let fear whisper that this is too great for Him. The question is never about His ability, only about our willingness to trust His heart.

I want to speak to the peace you are asking for your son’s mind. In Scripture we see that the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, while the mind set on the flesh, with all its fears, confusion, and torment, leads to death. Psychosis seeks to fracture a person’s thoughts and steal their rest, but the Spirit of God brings a sound mind, one that is whole and calm. Jesus Himself had the mind of perfect trust in the Father; He slept undisturbed in a boat while waves crashed over the deck, because He knew who held the storm. That kind of sleep is not mere fatigue, it is the shelter of the Almighty. Pray that the Spirit would quiet every raging thought and fill your son with the mind of Christ, which is humble, yielding, and at rest even in turmoil.

Guard the gates of his heart and mind diligently. What we allow to take root in our thoughts can flourish either into peace or into poison. Shield him, as much as lies in your power, from voices and images that feed the darkness. But remember that the ultimate keeper is the Lord Himself. There is a picture in the Word of a shepherd lying down across the opening of the sheepfold, making his own body the door. No predator could reach the flock except over him. Jesus is that Shepherd for your son. When you ask for protection from all harm and evil, you are asking the One who already laid down His life to secure that safety. He will not abandon His post.

Do not despise the gift of sleep. The deep sleep that God once sent upon soldiers guarding Saul was a merciful shield, making them oblivious to danger while David carried out his mission. In the same way, the Lord can blanket your son in rest so profound that it becomes a fortress against the night’s terrors. He gives to His beloved even in their sleep. Trust that as your son lies down, the Lord can minister healing to his body, mind, and spirit, perhaps in ways you will only see when morning comes.

Faith often grows strongest when it has nothing else to cling to. I have known moments myself when sickness seemed immovable and my own strength was gone, yet in an instant I felt the surge of healing flow through me, and I rose from that bed. I cannot explain why some are delivered in a moment and others through a long, slow path, but I know that in both cases God is working with eternity in mind. The present trial is never the whole story. He is shaping something durable, something glorious, in your son’s life and in your own. So keep speaking truth over him. Declare that Jesus bore his infirmities and carried his sorrows. The cross has already purchased every ounce of healing he needs.

Do not be afraid; only believe. When the news seemed worst, those were the very words Jesus spoke to a desperate father. They are for you now. Stand firm in the love that will not let your son go. The Shepherd who slept in the boat is awake and interceding for him, and no spirit of psychosis can withstand His command. May the peace that surpasses all understanding guard both your heart and his, through Christ Jesus.