Right now we have friends emailing or facebooking from all over the world who are stranded on route. The result of a volcanic eruption in Iceland is an ash cloud lingering over Europe stopping all flights in & out. One friend trying to get back home to Germany is stuck in New York, another is stuck in London trying to get back to USA.
People are being made to WAIT.
This morning the Lord took me to Ecclesiastes. “To everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven.” (3:1) On God’s calendar it is now the time between Passover/Easter & Shavuot/Pentecost. In Acts 1, Jesus instructed his disciples to “wait in Jerusalem for the Promise” (1:4). What was the promise?
Something completely new. Something completely different to what God had EVER done before.
God was about to come, no longer to dwell in a physical building, but dwell in the body of men. And He would give himself to not only the Jew but to the Gentile. The Tabernacle of God would be with & in all men!
The route to this moment in time was waiting.
Isaiah 40:31 says, “Those who wait on the Lord, He will renew their strength.” The word ‘wait’ here means “to bind together by twisting, to expect, to tarry”. There is something about the experience of waiting that involves twisting & binding. As we wait & continue to wait, we naturally seek out something to bind to.
On the Jewish calendar, now is the time between Moses first appearance from Mt Sinai (when the “Law” was written on two stone tablets) & the second time from Mt Sinai.
These two stone tablets containing the “Law” (defining their identity from God’s perspective), ended up being destroyed because as the people of Israel waited, they chose to bind themselves to the lies & deception that Moses would not return & that the Land God was taking them to would not be better than the slavery of Egypt (unbelief).
What we do in the waiting matters.
In both these events (Israel waiting in the Wilderness & Jesus disciples waiting in Jerusalem), God was about to do something He had never done before. In the waiting, He was preparing them to host the presence of God within them!
Again now we sit waiting. Being rather than doing. Stranded to be. Stranded to wait.
What new thing does God want to do with men, in men?
He is looking for a resting place, not a doing place.
As He rests in us & as we wait on Him, we are bound together with Him.
He is doing a new thing. Are you ready for this?