the    sides

This is part of a weekly e-vo series I’m doing through the New Testament book of Acts. Today is from Acts 1.

Jesus ascends into heaven and everyone is probably standing there mouths open looking straight up in the air. I wonder what freaked them out more - Jesus zipping off in the air or the appearance of the angels a few moments later telling them to get on with what Jesus had just told them to do.

The beginning of the church has a relatively shaking beginning. They’re meeting in hiding places, praying, not really knowing what the heck they are supposed to do next. Peter gets the grand idea to replace Judas as one of the disciples. And lest we think to highly of our early church fathers and how they made decisions, they drew straws to figure out who would replace Judas.

I’ve heard smarter people than I comment that Peter should not have done this. Jesus had already picked his replacement - Saul soon to be Paul - and this is just another example of Peter’s impatience. They may be right but it didn’t seem to upset God all that much.

But to me the thing that sticks out in this chapter are the words of Jesus. The people ask him - “Is this the time? Is this the time the Kingdom is restored to Israel?” Meaning, “Hey, you just conquered death, let’s go beat the snot out of the Romans.”

Jesus said:

You don’t get to know the time. Timing is the Father’s business. What you’ll get is the Holy Spirit. And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.

Timing is the Father’s business. Why did he have to go and say that? Do you know how much of my life is about timing? How much stress and worry is centered around time? Do you know that we spend most of our lives concerned about time and timing?

And Jesus just says - hey, it’s the Father’s business. Just be what I’m making you to be…leave the timing to God. Oswald Chambers said it this way: “Trust God and do the next thing.”

So as we scream out of 2007 and into 2008…just know that timing is the Father’s business…and He’s seldom early.