God’s Timing Feels Thin Sometimes

We spend so much of our lives considering the will and the timing of God.

“God has a plan for you.”

Those are words I have built my life on. Not as a slogan… as a foundation. As something I have leaned my weight on when everything else felt like sand.

But plans don’t come without derailments, detours, and delays. Plans blow up in your face sometimes. Plans fail. People fail. And even when I know the Word of the Lord remains forever… sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.

It’s ok to say that.

This isn’t about questioning whether God is real… I’m just refusing to pretend I don’t wrestle. Refusing to keep stepping around a thing I keep tripping over. Refusing to act like honest tension is the same thing as rebellion.

I serve a God of miracles.

I’ve seen them. I’ve experienced them. I’ve watched God do things so clear and so sudden that nobody needed to interpret it. It was just God… undeniable.

But the inverse is also true. I’ve watched miracles not happen.

I’ve prayed for breakthrough and sometimes it came in dramatic fashion… like the kind of thing you tell people and it still doesn’t sound real. And other times it didn’t come at all. Same prayers. Same faith. Same Bible open on the table. Same tears. Different outcome.

And we have these anecdotal statements we use to make sense of moments like that.

“God’s timing.”

“It’ll all work out in time.”

“Time heals.”

I understand why people say those things. I’ve said them. I’ve meant them. Sometimes they’re a lifeline. Sometimes they’re the only words you have when you don’t know what else to do.

But what about when time isn’t a healer?

What about when time is a reminder?

A reminder of missed opportunities… a reminder of moments that will never happen again… a reminder that something you were certain was coming didn’t come. Or it came too late. Or it came in a way that didn’t feel like anything you asked for.

What about waiting two years for a deed to finally clear... two years of phone calls, legal delays, and "it should be any day now"... two years of your dad asking if there's any update... and then it comes.

The deed comes.

And the same day it arrives, he has a stroke. Ten days later, he's gone.

You're holding the paper you waited for. The victory you fought for together. And there's no one to hand it to. No moment of celebration. No "we did it, Dad." Just a document and an empty chair.

That’s the kind of moment that has no easy answers. Just questions.

It’s the kind of moment that makes all the “God’s timing” phrases feel thin. Not false… just thin. Like trying to cover a wound with a sticky note and calling it a bandage.

And the truth is I’m realizing I’m at a place in my life where I don’t consider myself old… but I know I’m not young. I’m just in the middle. Not quite who I was, but not quite who I’m going to be either. And the irony is that I feel like I’ve lived an entire lifetime already.

Maybe it’s the calling. Maybe it’s the yes to God. Maybe it’s the relentless decisions to keep saying yes, even at great personal cost… even when it would have been easier to back up, slow down, protect myself, choose comfort, choose predictable.

It’s easy to say yes when questions are answered. When fruit is obvious. When problems resolve quickly. When you can connect the dots without squinting.

You know those moments when you feel like you can run through every wall and the wall actually breaks. When there are crowds of people eager to show up and cheer it on. When things are working. When you can point at something and say, see… God did that.

But it’s the moments when the questions just remain… no answer, no resolve, no crowd… those are the ones that shake you. Those are the ones that expose you.

Because you can’t feed yourself on momentum forever. You can’t live your whole life on adrenaline and outcome. Eventually you hit a place where the only thing left is what you actually believe about God when He doesn’t explain Himself.

And it feels like the older I get, the more questions I have.

Not because my faith is weaker. Maybe because it’s deeper. Or maybe because life has a way of taking simplistic categories and ripping them apart… not to destroy you, but to force you into something more honest. More human. Less rehearsed.

I hate even writing that because I know how it sounds… like I’m trying to dress grief up as growth. I’m not. I’m just telling the truth.

Some of the questions are coming from pain, and some of them are coming from this strange awareness that I’ve been “strong” for a long time.

Strong enough to lead. Strong enough to carry. Strong enough to pastor and disciple and counsel and show up and keep it moving.

And when you do that long enough, you start to realize there’s a price to never letting yourself stop. There’s a price to always being the one who handles it well. There’s a price to always needing the story to have a point.

Sometimes there is no point yet. Sometimes there is just loss.

And I don’t know what to do with that except name it.

Because I don’t want to become the kind of man who uses theology to avoid grief. I don’t want to become the kind of man who can quote truth but can’t sit in pain. I don’t want to perform a faith that looks clean while my insides are raw.

I know the right answers. I’ve taught the right answers. But right now I’m living in a space where the answers don’t hit the same because the question isn’t theoretical anymore.

The question has a face. The question has a chair that’s empty. The question has a moment that should have happened and didn’t.

And time keeps moving like it doesn’t care.

That’s what’s messing with me.

Time doesn’t pause because you’re grieving. It doesn’t slow down to let you catch your breath. It just keeps going. Days keep coming. Responsibilities keep asking. People keep needing things. And you’re expected to be the same person you were before… except you’re not.

And if I’m honest, part of me wants to run back to something simple. Not sinful, just simple. Something with fewer variables. Something where effort equals outcome. Something where you can do the right thing and get the right result.

But grief doesn’t work like that.

And God doesn’t always work like that either.

So here I am. In the middle. Loving God. Believing God. Still saying yes… and still asking, why like this… why now… why not sooner… why so close… why not one more day.

I don’t have a clean ending to this. I don’t have a bow. I don’t have a lesson.

I just have the reality that sometimes time doesn’t heal, it just marks the calendar. It just puts distance between you and the moment, and somehow that distance doesn’t make it lighter… it makes it clearer.

And maybe that’s what I’m afraid of.

That the longer I live, the clearer the absence becomes. That the longer I live, the more I’ll know exactly what was missed. That the longer I live, the more I’ll realize some things don’t get replaced.

And I don’t know how to write that without sounding like I’m doubting God, but I’m not doubting God…

I’m just here.