"I need to live with this pain until I learn whatever God is trying to teach me."
How it sounds in your head: Maybe if you're patient enough, humble enough, teachable enough, God will reveal the lesson and lift the pain. Until then, you're supposed to endure. Asking for relief before you've learned the lesson feels like skipping class.
"And behold, there was a woman who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent over and could in no way raise herself up. But when Jesus saw her, He called her to Him and said to her, 'Woman, you are loosed from your infirmity.' And He laid His hands on her, and IMMEDIATELY she was made straight, and glorified God."
-- Luke 13:11-13Religious teaching making God a cruel teacher who inflicts pain as curriculum instead of a loving Father who gives good gifts.
You've been taught that everything has a purpose, that God doesn't waste suffering. If the pain is still here, the lesson must be incomplete, and removing it would waste the opportunity.
She was bent over, unable to straighten, for 18 YEARS. Jesus saw her, called her forward, declared her LOOSED, and IMMEDIATELY she was made straight. No discussion of lessons learned, no waiting for revelation—just instant compassion and healing because God is GOOD.
I REFUSE the lie that God inflicts pain to teach me lessons. IT IS WRITTEN that Jesus went about HEALING all who were oppressed by the devil—sickness is oppression, not education. The woman bent over 18 years didn't graduate from suffering school before Jesus healed her; He IMMEDIATELY made her straight out of compassion, not curriculum. IT IS WRITTEN in James 1:17 that every GOOD and PERFECT gift comes from above—pain is neither, so it's not from my Father. My Father is not a cruel teacher; He's a loving Dad who runs toward me with healing. The BARAK blessing covers me not because I've learned enough, but because Christ's blood is enough.
Your Father isn't withholding healing until you pass a test. The prodigal didn't need to demonstrate lessons learned from the pig pen—the father saw him, RAN, and threw a party while he still smelled like failure. Healing isn't your graduation gift; it's your Father's heart on display.