In Reply to: Re: Demands on God. posted by Question on November 22, 2004 at 18:07:15:
...why people don't get healed. My point is that it isn't God who's trying to keep us sick. Think of the "promised land", and all the obstacles that stood between the children of Israel and their actually being able to enter into it, even though they were sure that God wanted them to have it.
Paul's thorn is something else altogether. In spite of what some people claim, a "thorn", elsewhere in the Bible, is never an illness, but is always a person. In this case, I believe it was the "messenger of Satan" (2Co. 12:7) --whose "buffetings" are listed in 11:23-28 -- that he wanted the Lord to get off his back. In my opinion, the Lord didn't do it, because WE are responsible to resist the devil (Ja. 4:7).