The room upstairs day1

 ACTS 2

 

People don’t usually like to wait. With that in mind, imagine the initial response to Jesus’ last command. “Don’t leave Jerusalem just yet. Wait a few days for the gift My Father is sending.” Do you suppose they were happy about that? “Hooray! We get to wait! That was just what I was hoping He’d say!”

People have always had a difficult time waiting — especially when they don’t have a lot of information. And Jesus didn’t give His followers many details. Maybe He explained things a little better than the writers of the Bible let on, but it doesn’t look like Jesus filled in the blanks for them very much.

Still, He said to wait, so they waited. They didn’t know how long they’d have to wait. They didn’t know what to do while they were waiting. They didn’t know how or when (or even that) the gift would arrive. They just knew they were supposed to wait.

Fortunately, they didn’t have to wait long — just 10 days. And, as it turned out, they didn’t have to wonder, “Is this the gift that He was talking about?”

It was pretty obvious.

They were all in the same room, 120 of them, when they heard the wind start blowing really loudly. Then they saw fire (which is not always a good thing when you’re in a crowded room). A pillar of fire entered the room, split into multiple parts and started moving toward certain people, specifically toward their heads.

You’d think this spectacle might have freaked them out a little. Is it going to hurt? Fire tends to hurt. Fire and human hair aren’t compatible.

But it didn’t hurt. It landed on everyone’s head, and no one was hurt.

And then people started speaking different languages.

It was all pretty confusing. A sound like a violent wind. Tongues of fire. Speaking in other languages. What in the world did it all mean?

The details about the gift the Father was sending were still fuzzy and would be for quite some time, but there was no mistaking this. The time for waiting was over. The Gift had come, bringing life and purpose, power and energy. Those 120 followers emerged from that room an unstoppable force, committed to do what they had seen Jesus doing, to be His Body — His hands and arms and feet and mouth. They were going to continue what He started.

Waiting just outside that room were people from all over the world. The followers of Jesus met them and began doing what Jesus told them to do: “Just be My witnesses. Tell others what you’ve seen and heard.”

That’s precisely what they did.

Then something strange started to happen. Some of the people didn’t believe them. Some thought they were drunk. Some thought they were crazy. But some listened, and some believed.

And the world has never been the same since.

Turns out, some gifts are worth waiting for.

 

Lord God, teach me to desire You more than anything else, to will what You command, to hope in Your promises, to trust in You and to wait on You. It is difficult for me rest in You and wait for Your timing because I get impatient with the status quo. And when this happens, I focus more on the product I want rather than the process along the way to what You want. It seems that the process of preparation always takes longer than what I have in mind. But what use would it be to travel rapidly toward what I would later discover to be a dead end? You alone know what is best for me, and Your love for me always wills it for me. You give me the opportunities and the gifts I need for the next stage in the journey, and I ask for the patience to wait for Your timing, for You to open doors and for You to endue me with Your power as I need it.

In Jesus’s name, Amen