…He (Jesus) gave them (the apostles) this command, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.” (Acts 1:4)

Can you think of any child who appreciates having to wait? (Didn’t take long to answer that, did it?!)

It takes a lot of living to come to an appreciation of wait. Living shows us that good things can happen during wait—things like learning patience and becoming acquainted with hope. Eventually, we can even appreciate that some things need to unfold in their own time, and if we don’t wait, we’ll sabotage—or at least interrupt—that process. 

The apostles had learned plenty about wait by the time Jesus told them to wait for the gift His Father had promised. They had discovered that Jesus’ way of navigating life operated on a very different timetable from their own. Most recently, they had seen this in Jesus’ wait before going to raise Lazarus from the dead and in His wait in the tomb before His resurrection.  

Both those times, and countless times before, offered opportunities for the apostles to learn that going by Jesus’ timetable was worth the wait.

Now they were being given another opportunity to wait. Jesus was asking them to wait for the Holy Spirit to come on them and empower them to become His witnesses to people near and far. (Which would be yet another act of bringing the dead to life.)

We can deduce that those former times of wait had humbled them and opened their eyes to their need for empowering because we learn that their next step was to “join together constantly in prayer” (Acts 1:14a). Prayer is what humble, needy, powerless people do when they have a good Father to run to during wait. 

Many - if not most - of us are waiting for the Holy Spirit to do something in, around, or through us. We may be unable to articulate that something, to fully understand it, to even be consciously aware of what it is. But nonetheless, deep down we know we need Him—not a plan, a Person—during the wait.   

The good news is that the Holy Spirit is working in our wait. He is the power that alerts us to our negative inclinations - such as habitual procrastination, self-imposed pressure, or insistence on doing it our way - that interfere with our wait. He is the power of hope and patience that keeps us on His timetable. 

Are you in a season of wait? Can you articulate what you are waiting for? 

Have you considered that the Holy Spirit is at work during your wait? That He is, in fact, probably waiting for you to have a conversation with Him about it? 

Bottom line: what He does from here on will enable you to know and trust Him more and, therefore, it will be totally worth the wait.