"My suffering with this disease brings me closer to God."
How it sounds in your head: When I'm hurting, I pray more. Maybe that's the point—maybe God keeps me sick so I'll need Him. If I got healed, would I forget about Him? Maybe pain is how He keeps me close.
"Come, and let us return to the Lord; for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up."
-- Hosea 6:1Source: Religious teaching that confuses desperation with intimacy and presents God as needing to hurt you to get your attention.
It's true that pain makes you pray more, so it feels logical that God uses pain as relationship glue. When people say 'God got your attention,' it sounds like wisdom.
Got sick unto death, prayed, and before the prophet even LEFT THE COURTYARD God said 'I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears—I will HEAL you. On the third day you'll go to the house of the Lord.' INSTANT turnaround, added 15 years to his life.
I REFUSE the lie that my Father needs to keep me sick to keep me close. IT IS WRITTEN that even under judgment in Hosea, God's plan was to HEAL and BIND UP—and I'm not under judgment at all, I'm under GRACE with no condemnation. My Father doesn't break my body to get my attention; He broke JESUS' body to purchase my health. Intimacy isn't built on my pain; it's built on His goodness revealed in healing. IT IS WRITTEN that He heard Hezekiah's prayer and healed him BEFORE the prophet left the room—God runs TOWARD the sick with healing, not away with a lesson plan. I am blessed with the BARAK of Abraham, and that blessing includes HEALTH as my inheritance. I receive healing NOW and walk in intimacy through His goodness, not through disease.
Your Father doesn't need to hurt you to have your heart—He already gave His heart crushed on a cross to win yours. He's not withholding healing to test your devotion; He's offering healing to reveal His nature.