I have begged God to take this away for years and it is still here. Why will he not just remove it?

“How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me?”

David opens with the same question four times over: how long. There is no resolution offered in the first half of the psalm and no rebuke for asking it. That this complaint was preserved as a song for public worship tells you something about what Israel believed prayer could hold. Unanswered prayer was not treated as a failure of faith but written into the liturgy.

“For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Paul asked three times for something to be removed, and it was not removed. He never explains what the thorn actually was, which has let generations of readers set their own struggle in the gap. What he received was not removal but sufficient grace, and he does not pretend that was the answer he wanted. He reports the refusal honestly and then keeps walking.