Imagine that you are a world class sprinter, ready for the 100 meter finals in the Olympics (it’s difficult for me to imagine it too, but just go with it). Your coach has been getting you all revved up for the race, your body is in prime condition, and your mind is ready for this race. You’ve been told to go and do your job, and you’ve prepared for this moment. You get down in the blocks, anxiously awaiting the starting gun, and wait. And wait. And wait. It seems like you’ve spent an eternity crouched down there, ready to run like the wind, sprinting towards the finish line. You yell at your coach asking, “aren’t we going to run?” and he replies back that you need to be patient and wait.
Now, put yourselves in the disciples sandals. Jesus told you to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) and you are ready to run out and do what the Savior has asked. You’ve just seen him raised from the dead, a man you saw crucified with your own eyes. You know he was dead, laid in a tomb, but yet he is here, standing in front of you. Your desire is to tell as many people as you can about the Messiah that you’ve seen and know. You and your fellow disciples have all gathered together to start spreading the Gospel when Christ says to wait here and don’t leave. Wait? But you said to go, and I’m ready to go! I don’t want to wait. Aren’t you going to restore the kingdom? Why not now? (Acts 1:4-6)
Don’t we all feel that way sometimes? We feel ready to unchain ourselves from what has been holding us back and then we are required to wait. We want to accomplish things NOW, not wait for something that we don’t know when or how it might be coming. This happens in our personal lives, our professional lives, even among the church. We don’t want to wait for something, we want it now. Patience is truly a virtue that many of us have not mastered. My wife says that I am patient most of the time, though my children and my parents would disagree with that. I see myself as fairly patient, but I have a proximity bias. I know that there are times when I’m more than willing to wait on something, and other times when I want to start on it immediately. I don’t believe that I’m unique in this feeling either.
What the disciples didn’t know was that they were about to receive a helper, a comforter to assist them in spreading the Gospel to the ends of the earth. They were ready for the kingdom to be restored immediately but Jesus told them,
“It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:7-8)
It is not for you to know the times or seasons. That’s powerful language. It takes the onus of knowledge off of us and places it on the Father. It requires us to wait until we have received the Holy Spirit, and then it’s time to do the work we have been commanded to do. The results and outcome are left up to God, we simply work in the field to help bring in the harvest. The power to accomplish this task is not even our own, but comes through the Holy Spirit.
So, are we ready to wait and see where the Spirit directs us? Or are we going to jump the gun and run off in our own race, without the power promised us by Christ?
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