Wait

**Over Easter week, my church asked me to write the story of Holy Week from a first person narrative. I enjoyed this so much, I decided to continue this narrative into Acts. I hope you are blessed.

Have you ever noticed, in life, that we wait? I’m not sure what you are waiting for, but the waiting for the promise of the Father, for the Holy Spirit took forever. Yet, He proved Himself faithful, that He would rise again. He would come back from the dead. For forty days, Jesus moved among us, continuing to speak of the kingdom of God. He asked us to wait in Jerusalem, power would come to us, we need only wait. 

When we wait, I’ve noticed, we can become fixated on that one thing. Waiting. Hoping. Longing to the point of forgetting other important things. I mean, you already know the story of Jesus being taken up to heaven before our very eyes. After we could see Him no longer, we still stared up into the heavens. The angels had to come and shoo us off the mountain. Admittedly, we were all waiting to see if He would come back again right away. We have laughed over that many times since.

As we waited in Jerusalem, we began to discuss and pour over our memories of the last three years with Jesus. One would remember a story, others would add their thoughts and recollections. They were not all good stories. We reflected on Judas and processed the hints through our three years together that led to such a betrayal. We realized a few things. 

One, Jesus knew when He chose Judas that the betrayal would come. He chose Him anyway. I think over the miracles, the love, the conversations and marvel at Judas’ choice. It was many small choices over time that opened his heart and mind to the evil. Jesus never stopped loving Him, even until the very end…

Two, there has always been a plan that cannot be thwarted by men that God holds together. Jesus knew His purpose and He kept reminding us all what He came to do. 

Three, the night of His betrayal, Jesus could have chosen to go somewhere that Judas could not find Him. He chose to go to the garden. He waited and watched them all come for Him too. 

While we waited we also prayed. We prayed for His kingdom to come; for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We prayed that we would not be led into temptation but be delivered from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13 my paraphrase) We prayed for His strength in our weakness, that His power would be made perfect in our weakness. Just as Jesus’ presence was with us for those three years, we asked for the power of Christ to enfold us and dwell within us. (2 Corinthians 12:9 my paraphrase)

How we wait for our prayers to be answered matters. I