In July 1985 I became an insulin-dependent diabetic, and my first book, Money Possessions, and Eternity, was published. It was one of the best things that ever happened to me—becoming a diabetic, I mean. Getting published was good too, but it didn’t do nearly as much for my spiritual life as getting sick did.

I had always been a strong and healthy person. Suddenly, four to five times a day, I needed to take blood tests and stick a needle in my side to inject insulin. (In the last few years, I’ve transitioned to a pump.) I’ve kept that up for forty years, every day without exception. There are times when I feel pretty lousy. I’m often tired, and my blood sugar sometimes swings up and down. When it’s up, I feel very tired; when it’s down, I get weak and become confused and disoriented. I begin to say things that don’t make sense. (A friend of mine teases me about this, but I point out to him that in those moments I’m acting like he acts all the time.)

So why do I say becoming an insulin-dependent diabetic was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me? There are a lot of reasons. One is that I understand weak, sick, and hurting people in a way I never did when I was strong and healthy. There’s a tendency for the healthy to have one basic response to the sick and weak, and that’s “suck it up.” Now, I’m all for sucking it up, and often that’s very good advice, but it’s also true that some things are outside of our control.

Gaining a sense of recognition of how my life has been outside of my control all along has had a profound effect on me. I had always been self-sufficient and independent, more like my father than I care to admit. He was an independent, self-sufficient unbeliever, and I was an independent, self-sufficient believer. But neither of us would be characterized as needy, at least not on the outside. We were in control, and we took pride in being in control. I was a decent pastor, and I could usually count on my mind working well. (I’m so grateful my dad admitted his spiritual need and came to faith at age 84.)

God has been very gracious to allow me not to experience the debilitating effects some insulin-dependent diabetics undergo. I’m still active—I do a lot of cycling and I played tennis for years. Hopefully my mind is still operative (though I may not be the best person to judge that!). But in any case, I look at life differently than I used to. I don’t take for granted what it means to feel good. I don’t assume I can just get out and handle any situation that comes along. Sometimes I need to rest or get help, or eat something to get my blood sugar up. I used to skip meals, and never felt weak as a result. Now I can’t do that.

In other words, I’ve become less independent and self-sufficient. I also think God has done for me what He did for Paul when He sent him his thorn in the flesh, which Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul acknowledged that his physical illness was a messenger from Satan. But he realized that Satan, in turn, was on God’s leash. God sovereignly governs the acts of Satan. Therefore, Paul could see the hand of God in his disease. That’s why he said that his physical problem was given to him to keep him from becoming conceited (2 Corinthians 12:7).

Paul might have been tempted to believe all the great things people said about him. His thorn of the flesh was a reminder he was completely dependent upon God. Paul says God’s word to him was “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

So this is what I’ve learned from being diabetic: all I have to offer is the weakness. God alone offers the strength. When I go on a speaking engagement, when I travel, when I sit down to write, I am acutely aware that I don’t have the skill or the power to pull this off. If it’s going to impact lives for eternity, that will have to be a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. I just don’t have what it takes.

Charles Spurgeon wrote, “I venture to say that the greatest earthly blessing that God can give to any of us is health, with the possible exception of sickness.... If some men that I know of could only be favoured with a month of rheumatism, it would, by God’s grace, mellow them marvelously.”

Though he sought to avoid suffering, Spurgeon said, “I am afraid that all the grace that I have got of my comfortable and easy times and happy hours, might almost lie on a penny. But the good that I have received from my sorrows, and pains, and griefs, is altogether incalculable.... Affliction is the best bit of furniture in my house. It is the best book in a minister’s library.”

I can vouch for what Spurgeon said. Understanding my insufficiency and dependence is the best thing that ever happened to me. Without the disease God gave me, I wouldn’t have learned that truth. That’s why I stopped praying years ago that God would take away my diabetes. Of course, if He did, I wouldn’t complain, but the truth is that if I were given the power to snap my fingers to take the disease away, I wouldn’t do it. God knows far better than I that He has given me diabetes. This may sound strange when you hear the health and wealth gospel that promotes the belief that God wants us all healthy. As God demonstrated in giving Paul his thorn in the flesh, He sometimes has better things in mind than our health.