On one occasion, while [Jesus] was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.
- Acts 1:4

Don’t leave Jerusalem? Jesus, you must be crazy. Jerusalem was the most dangerous place on earth for us to hang out. They killed you there just a little while ago, remember?

In just a few verses, Jesus was going to drop a seemingly impossible mission on his followers: be his witnesses even to the ends of the earth. But he didn’t want them to just rush out and get to it. He slowed them down.

Stay in Jerusalem. Stay in the place of danger. Stay and wait. Live in a place that can only be lived in if you’re willing to live with faith and hope. Trust God to look out for you and for his own mission.

We are so often in so much of a hurry that we won’t wait anywhere, much less in a place of danger. We want to get moving. We want to jump. We want to run. And when God tells us to wait, it can be difficult to hear.

Where in your life do you feel like God is calling you to wait? Do you feel any resonance with the disciples, waiting dangerously but not exactly knowing why?