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What to Do When You're Angry at God's Timing · Daily Devotions for Busy Lives

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  Bart Leger: Kate Bowler had built her career studying a
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  single idea. She's a historian at Duke, and for years she dug
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  into the belief that if you have enough faith, God will reward
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  you with health and money. She knew all the promises people had
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  made about how faith pays off. Then, at 35, a new mom, she was
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  handed a diagnosis of stage 4 colon cancer. Here was a woman
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  who taught for a living that faith produces good outcomes,
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  and her own body had just handed her the opposite. She was young,
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  with a toddler at home, and the timing of it made no sense at
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  all. We'll come back to what she did with that. But first,
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  welcome to Daily Devotions for Busy Lives. I'm Bart Leger. I've
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  been on the other side of this conversation more times than I
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  can count. Somebody sits down across from me furious about how
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  long God is taking, and for years my instinct was to explain
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  it. I reached for a reason. God's working on something, and
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  His timing is perfect. All of it was true, and most of it sounded
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  trite. What a person in that chair wants is somebody who will
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  just listen to them. It took me a long time to quit talking and
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  let them say it. You know the feeling if you've prayed about
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  something long enough, a door that stays shut year after year,
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  a diagnosis that arrives in the worst possible month of the
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  worst possible year, and the part that gets under your skin
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  is the schedule itself. God could have done last spring, but
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  He didn't. He was able the whole time, but He waited anyway, and
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  you're the one living in the meantime. Most of us handle that
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  by getting polite with God. We pray around the thing. We use
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  phrases like trusting the process when what we mean is
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  we're furious, and we don't think we're allowed to say so.
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  There's a woman in the Gospels who didn't bother with any of
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  that. It's in John 11, 21. Martha said to Jesus, Lord, if
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  only you had been here, my brother would not have died. She
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  said that to His face. Her brother had been in the tomb for
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  four days, and the first words out of her mouth when Jesus
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  finally showed up were an accusation about His schedule,
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  and she had a point. Jesus got word that Lazarus was sick, and
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  He deliberately stayed where He was for two more days. He was
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  late on purpose. Now, watch what He does with her frustration. He
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  never corrects her, and He never explains the two days. He asks
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  where they put the body, and then the shortest verse in the
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  Bible tells us what happened. Jesus wept. He stood there and
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  cried with a woman who had just told Him He was too late. Here's
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  a detail that's easy to run past. Mary comes out a few minutes
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  later and says the identical sentence. Both sisters had been
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  saying it to each other for four days, and Jesus walked into a
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  house where His timing was the main topic of conversation. He
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  didn't defend Himself one time. Then He raised the man. The
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  weeping came first, and the raising came second, and both of
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  them were His answer to her complaint. So take yours to Him.
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  Say whatever it is you've been editing out of your prayers.
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  Lord, if only you had been here. If you had opened this last year,
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  God is more secure than the version of Him you were taught
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  to protect, and He would rather have your frustration than a
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  performance of patience that you don't feel. And look at what
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  Martha did after she said it. She stayed in the room. A few
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  verses later, she's the one confessing that Jesus is the
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  Christ, the Son of God. Her complaint came from heart of
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  faith, and she was still standing there talking to Him
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  when the stone came off. So she got angry. Kate didn't reach for
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  the neat explanations she'd spent a decade studying, the
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  ones that tie suffering up with a bow. She threw them out. She
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  told God the truth about how unfair the timing felt with a
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  child who still needed his mom. And then she did the thing that
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  made the difference. She kept talking to Him. And then she
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  wrote a book out of it, and the title says a lot about where she
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  ended up. She called it,
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  Look at the turn in Kate's story. She threw out the tidy
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  explanations, told God the truth about the timing, and then kept
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  talking to Him. That last part's the whole thing. Anger that
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  keeps praying is still a conversation, and God can work
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  with a conversation. Here's today's challenge. Find 10
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  minutes alone today and pray whatever it is you've been
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  holding back. Start where Martha started. Lord, if only you
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  had... And then you fill in the blanks. Finish it up with the
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  thing you're angry or frustrated about, and don't clean it up on
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  the way out of your mouth. Then stay there for a minute, because
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  the staying is the part that matters. Father, you already
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  know what we've been holding back from you about your timing.
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  Thank you that Martha said it to your son's faith, and that he
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  met her with tears. For everyone listening who's angry or
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  frustrated about how long this is taking, give them the freedom
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  to say it clearly, and keep them in the conversation after they
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  do.
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  In Jesus' name, amen. If Daily Devotions for Busy Lives has
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  been an encouragement to you, would you take a minute and
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  leave a rating and review? Go to DailyDevotionsForBusyLives.com
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  slash reviews slash new. It helps more people find these
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  devotions, and it only takes a moment. I'd be so grateful.
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  Thanks for joining me on Daily Devotions for Busy Lives.
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  Remember, God can handle what you think about his timing. Say
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  it, and then stay in the conversation. Come back next
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  time for more encouragement to help you live grounded in God's
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  truth. Until then, God bless, and have a great day.