Does How We Wait Matter?

"Have courage!  For as you have testified about Me in Jerusalem,

so you must also testify about Me in Rome." (Acts. 23:11)

Rome...The deep desire of Paul's heart.  Oh how he longed to see the Roman saints.  He had planned many times to visit them; yet each time he was prevented from doing so.

Rome...his intense longing for the Believer's there...and now Jesus has revealed that Paul must testify about Him in Rome!

But he is in chains in Caesarea.  Two long years have passed; this desire Paul has carried still is unfulfilled.  And so he waits...

Does how we wait matter?

There are others who have waited these two years.  They too have a deep desire, a fiery passion.  It too remains unfulfilled.

"Then the chief priests and leaders of the Jews presented their case against Paul to him (Festus);

and they appealed, asking him to do them a favor against Paul, that he might summon him

to Jerusalem.  They were preparing an ambush along the road to kill him."  (Acts 25, 2,3)

Does how we wait matter?

Over and over we see Paul - bound and under arrest, in the midst of His waiting - taking every opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.  Even as his longing for Rome remains unfulfilled, his deeper longing is to share Jesus with any audience:  Jew, Gentile, slaves, Roman guards and Centurions, governors and kings.  How he waits matters.

Two long years also for the chief priests and leaders.  Paul is shut away; yet their desire to see him not just shut away, but killed, has grown and grown.  It has become a deep root of bitterness that has filled them and they have become captive to sin.  How they wait matters.

How we wait matters too.

What is the deep desire of your heart that remains unfulfilled?  What are you longing for, waiting for but have not yet seen?  How do you wait?  Because how you wait matters.  Paul waited, in hope.  The Jewish leaders waited, in bitterness.

What is the answer to how we wait?

"Yet those that wait upon the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like

eagles; they will run and not get tired; they will walk and not become weary."  (Isaiah 40)

The advent season is almost upon us.  It is a season of waiting.  God's people had been waiting 400 years; waiting during a time when He seemed silent to their dreams and longings, their passions and their sufferings.  I'm sure they asked, "How long Lord, how long?"

And God responded with His Son, born as a baby.  Born to die so that in Him we may live.  Our longings and yearnings will be fulfilled - in Him.  Whatever you are waiting for...whatever desires reside deep within you...whatever answers seem to go unanswered...lean into Him.

This is how we wait.

Because He is enough.

He is enough.