"Suffering through this sickness brings me closer to God than healing would."
How it sounds in your head: I feel God more when I'm sick and desperate. Maybe if I got healed, I'd forget about God and go back to normal life. Maybe the sickness is what keeps me close to Him.
"If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you."
-- Exodus 15:26Religion confused intimacy through dependence with intimacy through inheritance, making pain the price of God's presence.
When you're sick, you pray more and feel more desperate for God, so it seems like sickness creates closeness. It feels like getting healed would mean losing that special connection.
He was sick unto death and prayed desperately, and God said 'I have HEARD your prayer, I have SEEN your tears; surely I will HEAL you' and added FIFTEEN YEARS to his life! God responded to his cry with HEALING, not prolonged sickness for intimacy!
I REFUSE the lie that sickness brings me closer to God! IT IS WRITTEN that His NAME is 'the LORD who heals you' - healing is His nature! Hezekiah cried out sick and God HEALED him, adding fifteen years! IT IS WRITTEN in 3 John 2 that God wants me to PROSPER and be in HEALTH! I can be close to Him in STRENGTH, not just in sickness! I am under the BARAK blessing where health AND intimacy flow together! I receive healing NOW and my relationship with Him INCREASES in strength!
Your Father isn't keeping you sick to keep you close - He's running toward you with healing so you can walk WITH Him in health, not lie in bed crying TO Him! He wants partnership in strength, not desperation in weakness!