C.S. Lewis said that as a child, when he had a toothache, he knew that if he went to his mother, she’d give him something to deaden the pain. But he would avoid going to her because he also knew she’d take him to the dentist, who would then start fiddling about with all sorts of other teeth which had not yet begun to ache. He said, ‘I wanted immediate relief from my pain; but I knew I couldn’t get it without having my teeth set permanently right.’ He went on to say, that God is bit like a dentist. Many of us would like Him to fix up some particular pain in our lives, but we avoid going to Him because we have an intuitive sense that He won’t stop there, but will want to give us the full treatment.
What we forget, of course, is that most of our pain in life comes from being the way we are and needing the full treatment.