670 The Spiritual Man
that his body is ruined, his life is endangered, sickness has
progressively devoured his health, and pain has swallowed up his
power? By this time the person is actually willing to die; he is
hopeless but also self-loveless. It would be the height of tragedy
were he at this moment not to return and claim God’s promise of
healing.
The heart of a believer is far from God’s. God permits him to be
ill that he may forget himself; but the more ill he grows the more
self-loving he becomes; he endlessly dwells on his symptoms in his
anxiety to find a cure. Almost all thoughts revolve about himself!
How attentive he now is to his food, what he should or should not
eat! How worried he is when anything goes away! He takes great
care for his comforts and rest. He agonizes if he feels a bit hot or
cold or has suffered a bad night, as though these were fatal to his life.
How sensitive he is to the way people treat him: do they think
enough of him, do they take good care of him, do they visit him as
often as they should? Countless hours are exhausted in just this way
of thinking about his body; and so he has no time to meditate on the
Lord or on what the Lord may be wanting to accomplish in his life.
Indeed, many are simply “bewitched” by their sickness! We never
truly know how excessively much we love ourselves until we
become sick!
God is not delighted with our self-love. He desires us to
comprehend the far-reaching damage it inflicts upon us. He wishes
us to learn in the hour of sickness how to be engrossed not in our
symptoms but exclusively in Him. It is His desire that we commit our
body entirely to Him and allow Him to care for it. Every discovery of
an adverse symptom should warn us not to be occupied with our
body but to mind the Lord.
Due to love of self the believer seeks healing as soon as he is sick.
He does not perceive that he ought to rid his heart of wicked deeds
before beseeching God to heal. His eyes are fixed upon healing. He