40 Days Waiting

Listen and have faith..., originally uploaded by carf.

After He had suffered, He also presented Himself alive to them by many convincing proofs, appearing to them during 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. While He was together with them. He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for the Father's promise. "This," He said, "is what you heard from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
Acts 1:3-6

As I read this passage recently I was struck again by the fact that Jesus was again asking his disciples to wait. They had waited for Jesus to proclaim himself King in Jerusalem and after their grief and disappointment they waited again, perhaps the memory of what Jesus had said about his resurrection in the back of their minds, hardly daring to believe it, but waiting. And then they had to travel back to Galilee (quite a journey on foot) where they were told to meet Jesus. Jesus was with them for 40 days. Wouldn't you haved loved to have been there? Listening to Jesus, waiting on his every word, your mind racing with what was going to happen next. Was He going to do it now? Restore the kingdom to Israel? And then came the blow. Jesus was going away and there was to be more waiting for the Holy Spirit.

Waiting.... I hate it. I want to understand everything now. I want a blueprint of what I am to expect. But God does not work like that. The mysteries that He presents to us are so mind boggling and amazing that we need time to think and mull them over in our own minds and come to our own place of understanding and wonder. In the waiting there is preparation and there is intimacy with God if we will stop and let Him speak to us. Perhaps like me, God is teaching to you to be patient and wait, from the little things that niggle to the big amazing things that we don't fully understand. The disciples became great men of courage. May we know His strength as we wait upon the Lord.