In some of his final words to the Apostles before he left, Jesus told them to wait. The text says: “He ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father.” In a sense Jesus was saying:“You won’t get out of the parking lot, much less to the ends of the earth, without the gasoline of God’s Spirit in you. So just stay put in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit shows up. Just wait…”

Here’s a question: How well do you wait? If we’re honest, most of us would probably say, “Not very well.” Waiting patiently, for most people, is not a strong suit. But there’s another question we might ask: What should we do while we’re waiting?

The truth is, we spend a lot of our lives in the valleys of waiting, between the peaks of acting. So what should we do while we’re waiting? The passage we are looking at this week will give us some help. See you on Sunday.