What to Do When You're Angry at God's Timing

Kate Bowler had built her career studying a

single idea. She's a historian at Duke, and for years she dug

into the belief that if you have enough faith, God will reward

you with health and money. She knew all the promises people had

made about how faith pays off. Then, at 35, a new mom, she was

handed a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer. Here was a woman

who taught for a living that faith produces good outcomes,

and her own body had just handed her the opposite. She was young,

with a toddler at home, and the timing of it made no sense at

all. We'll come back to what she did with that. But first,

welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I've

been on the other side of this conversation more times than I

can count. Somebody sits down across from me furious about how

long God is taking, and for years my instinct was to explain

it. I reached for a reason. God's working on something, and

His timing is perfect. All of it was true, and most of it sounded

trite. What a person in that chair wants is somebody who will

just listen to them. It took me a long time to quit talking and

let them say it. You know the feeling if you've prayed about

something long enough, a door that stays shut year after year,

a diagnosis that arrives in the worst possible month of the

worst possible year, and the part that gets under your skin

is the schedule itself. God could have done last spring, but

He didn't. He was able the whole time, but He waited anyway, and

you're the one living in the meantime. Most of us handle that

by getting polite with God. We pray around the thing. We use

phrases like trusting the process when what we mean is

we're furious, and we don't think we're allowed to say so.

There's a woman in the Gospels who didn't bother with any of

that. It's in John 11, 21. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if

only you had been here, my brother would not have died. She

said that to His face. Her brother had been in the tomb for

four days, and the first words out of her mouth when Jesus

finally showed up were an accusation about His schedule,

and she had a point. Jesus got word that Lazarus was sick, and

He deliberately stayed where He was for two more days. He was

late on purpose. Now, watch what He does with her frustration. He

never corrects her, and He never explains the two days. He asks

where they put the body, and then the shortest verse in the

Bible tells us what happened. Jesus wept. He stood there and

cried with a woman who had just told Him He was too late. Here's

a detail that's easy to run past. Mary comes out a few minutes

later and says the identical sentence. Both sisters had been

saying it to each other for four days, and Jesus walked into a

house where His timing was the main topic of conversation. He

didn't defend Himself one time. Then He raised the man. The

weeping came first, and the raising came second, and both of

them were His answer to her complaint. So take yours to Him.

Say whatever it is you've been editing out of your prayers.

Lord, if only you had been here. If you had opened this last year,

God is more secure than the version of Him you were taught

to protect, and He would rather have your frustration than a

performance of patience that you don't feel. And look at what

Martha did after she said it. She stayed in the room. A few

verses later, she's the one confessing that Jesus is the

Christ, the Son of God. Her complaint came from heart of

faith, and she was still standing there talking to Him

when the stone came off. So she got angry. Kate didn't reach for

the neat explanations she'd spent a decade studying, the

ones that tie suffering up with a bow. She threw them out. She

told God the truth about how unfair the timing felt with a

child who still needed his mom. And then she did the thing that

made the difference. She kept talking to Him. And then she

wrote a book out of it, and the title says a lot about where she

ended up. She called it,

Look at the turn in Kate's story. She threw out the tidy

explanations, told God the truth about the timing, and then kept

talking to Him. That last part's the whole thing. Anger that

keeps praying is still a conversation, and God can work

with a conversation. Here's today's challenge. Find 10

minutes alone today and pray whatever it is you've been

holding back. Start where Martha started. Lord, if only you

had... And then you fill in the blanks. Finish it up with the

thing you're angry or frustrated about, and don't clean it up on

the way out of your mouth. Then stay there for a minute, because

the staying is the part that matters. Father, you already

know what we've been holding back from you about your timing.

Thank you that Martha said it to your son's faith, and that he

met her with tears. For everyone listening who's angry or

frustrated about how long this is taking, give them the freedom

to say it clearly, and keep them in the conversation after they

do.

In Jesus' name, amen. If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has

been an encouragement to you, would you take a minute and

leave a rating and review? Go to DailyDevotionsForBusyLives.com

slash reviews slash new. It helps more people find these

devotions, and it only takes a moment. I'd be so grateful.

Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.

Remember, God can handle what you think about his timing. Say

it, and then stay in the conversation. Come back next

time for more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's

truth. Until then, God bless, and have a great day.