Does anyone like waiting? I, more often that not, find myself filling up with rage as I stand in the self-service checkout line eyeballing the person who has decided to put their monthly shop through the self-service till, a till that’s only supposed to be used to buy a pint of milk (not for avoiding awkward conversations with other humans). Using petrol stations to buy more than 5 items is also a no.

Waiting minutes can seem like hours, it can be excruciating, especially if you’re always running late. In Acts 1, Jesus gives the 11 disciples a very specific command that men generally dislike, to wait (Acts 1:4). Jesus had appointed a specific time for sending the Holy Spirit and it was to be sent to a specific place, Jerusalem. God also had an appointed time for sending His Son (Galatians 4:4) to earth to rescue the world from death into life. God has also appointed a specific period of time for each of us to be alive and set aside works for us (Ephesians 2:10), just like He had works planned for Esther (4:14). Esther’s longest hours were years, years of difficulty and pain, but all along God was positioning her for future works. Esther’s longest hours seemed fruitless, pointless and without value, ours too can feel the same way. It is at this vulnerable moment in time the serpent senses opportunity, it is the perfect time for him to attack us in the same manner he did with Eve in the garden. The snake (in the literal and metaphorical sense) implied, with cunning questions, God was keeping knowledge from them, whilst in reality God was keeping this knowledge for them. When God withholds certain things from us from a period of time, it is for our good.

There is a dual purpose for the longest hours of our lives, 1) God is teaching us humility – it is His plan for our lives that must come to fruition and not ours, and 2) like the disciples, we must wait to be filled with the Holy Spirit before the appointed works for us are to take place. The two reasons are of the same principle – it is so God gets all of the glory.

The premise of Jesus’ faith in proclaiming the disciples “will be witnesses” (in spite of their previous abandonment of him) is that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit and not their own strength. A new day had dawned for the disciples, they had never experienced the fullness of God in this way, their lives would be forever changed. The disciples had spent 3 years with Jesus, but it wasn’t enough. If the world was to be forever changed, they needed to be forever changed. We need to be forever changed too. They needed the full experience to walk in the works planned for them, we are not any different, before we can walk in the works God has planned for us, we need the full experience of Christ too.

The longest hours of our lives, like Esther’s, will be excruciating, but they serve a purpose – so that God may get the glory for all that we do. It’s His plan and His power and we are the jars of clay used to display Him.

For His Glory – Andy