Many atheists and agnostics view the God of the Bible – especially as revealed in the Old Testament – as being angry, cruel, and vindictive. But when the Bible is read as a whole, with the goal of actually knowing God, what emerges is a being who is infinitely loving, gracious, and patient. There is a side to God you don’t want to mess with — but his judgment comes from righteousness and justice, not evil intent. More often than not, what I read in the Bible is God holding back his anger, and delaying judgment, in the hope that people will repent.

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If God were truly as cruel as people suggest, he could have destroyed us from the very beginning. Why give us a chance at all, if he is evil? The fact that he lets his world continue, tolerating human beings despite their evil, is to me a sign of His grace – and his patience.

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But when we talk about God’s patience, what do we actually mean? It is his ability to hold back, to wait, to endure calmly in the hope of a good outcome. It means restraining emotions and passions, not allowing them to quickly heat up and boil over. It means holding back anger and the desire for justice and retribution, especially in the face of great evil. This is why God is so often described throughout the Bible as slow to anger and long-suffering — as he describes himself to Moses: ‘The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness’ (Exodus 34:6, NIV).

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The evidence for this runs throughout the Bible. Before flooding the world, God gave people possibly as much as a hundred years to hear Noah’s preaching and repent (1 Peter 3:20).

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What about the Canaanites – often cited as the starkest example of God’s cruelty? The deeper question of how total that judgment was, and its morality, deserves its own article rather than a paragraph here. What I want to focus on is the timing, and whether God acted without warning. God gave the Canaanites 400 years to repent – while Israel was enslaved in Egypt — before acting, telling Abraham why:  ‘the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure’ (Genesis 15:16). At Jericho, Rahab tells the spies the city had already heard what God had done and was living in dread of it (Joshua 2:9–11). Rahab and her household responded to that warning, and were spared. God didn’t skip the offer of mercy – people simply didn’t take it.

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Then there’s Nineveh – capital of Assyria, a nation notorious for brutality. Jonah’s warning was blunt: forty days, and the city would fall (Jonah 3:4). God gave the Ninevites time to respond. And respond they did. From the king down, the whole city repented, and ‘God saw what they did… and he relented’ (Jonah 3:10).

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Israel and Judah tell the same story. Generation after generation they sinned – even sacrificing their own children – and generation after generation God delayed judgment, before finally allowing both kingdoms to fall.

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Further evidence of God’s patience: despite humanity’s continued rejection, God sent his son to suffer and die for all who would believe. And still today, he waits, giving every person the opportunity to repent. As Peter writes: ‘With the Lord a day is like a thousand years... He is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance’ (2 Peter 3:8–9, NIV).

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But God’s patience isn’t reserved only for those outside the faith — it’s also his ongoing posture toward believers. As Paul writes of himself: ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst... Christ Jesus might display his immense patience as an example’   (1 Timothy 1:15–16, NIV).

Considering both God’s patience and His judgment, three things stand out:
 

1. God’s patience is long-suffering, not limitless. I need to regularly take stock of my life and be genuinely repentant. Rather than testing God’s patience to see what I can get away with, as a Christian I need to value his patience as an opportunity to grow and mature in Christ.

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2.  God’s patience is an opportunity for people to know Jesus. I need to be deliberate about reaching out to others.

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3.  If God is so patient with me, shouldn’t I extend that to others? Delaying my own anger, holding on to hope for people to change – without abandoning healthy boundaries – means, I shouldn’t be quick to write people off.