Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study
Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study

When God Seems Distracted | The Gospels | Matthew 9:18–38

October 15, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

When Patrick Miller’s daughter told him, “You only pay attention to your phone. Pay attention to me instead,” it landed like a dagger. He had feared that very moment—not because he didn’t love her, but because his actions were communicating a heart he didn’t actually have. “My worst nightmare turned real,” he says, and he uses that experience to introduce a deeper spiritual question: What do you do when you feel like God is the distracted one?

That feeling—of being overlooked while God seems busy with someone else’s crisis—is the central tension of Matthew 9:18–38. Miller walks through the passage with raw honesty, refusing to smooth over the discomfort, and lands on a counterintuitive argument: the waiting itself is not a sign of neglect but a purposeful gift.

The Urgent Need and the Interruption

The story begins with a synagogue leader whose daughter has just died. He comes to Jesus with an urgent, life-or-death request: “Come and put your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus agrees and starts walking. But on the way, a woman who has been bleeding for twelve years touches the edge of his cloak, hoping for healing. Jesus stops. He turns. He speaks to her. He tells her she is healed.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:05) **Opening: A Father’s Phone and Feeling God’s Distraction** - Host Patrick Miller shares a personal story about his daughter calling him out for being distracted by his phone, and connects it to the feeling that God might be distracted by other things.
  • 2 (01:34) **The Biblical Scene: Jairus’s Daughter and the Bleeding Woman** - The transcript reads Matthew 9:18–38, introducing a synagogue leader (Jairus) whose daughter has just died, and a woman with a chronic bleeding condition who interrupts Jesus on the way to heal the girl.
  • 3 (02:26) **The Dilemma: Jesus Seems Distracted from the Urgent** - Miller imagines what the synagogue leader must have thought when Jesus paused for the bleeding woman instead of rushing to save his daughter.
  • 4 (03:08) **When You Feel Like God Is Distracted** - Miller draws a parallel between the synagogue leader’s experience and the listener’s own life: times when urgent prayers seem unanswered.
  • 5 (03:54) **The Resolution: Jesus Raises the Girl** - The story continues as Jesus enters the leader’s house, dismisses the mourners, and raises the girl from the dead.
  • 6 (04:39) **The Core Promise: You Matter, but Your Timing Isn’t God’s** - Miller states the central theological point: God never delays or fails, but his timing is different from ours.
  • 7 (05:27) **The Resurrection Promise: The Wait Will End** - Miller concludes by tying the story’s resurrection ending to the Christian hope of final resurrection.

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Guests on this episode

Patrick Miller

Show Notes

Have you ever felt like God has forgotten about you? Why does Jesus pause to help a woman while a desperate father waits for him to heal his dying daughter? And what does this story teach us about trusting in God’s timing? In today’s episode, Patrick explores Matthew 9:18–38 and reminds us that God hasn’t forgotten us, even when he asks us to wait and trust his purposes.


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Passage: Matthew 9:18–38

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study

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