| “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” |
| —Acts 2:1-2 |
For most of us, waiting on God to answer whatever we ask in our prayers, or waiting on God to show us the direction He wants us to go in any matter, far too often seems like a never-ending period of time. When we first started to wait on God’s response, we often wait far longer than we had ever anticipated waiting.
The first Disciples must have felt that way, too. They had seen Jesus ascend back to Heaven and had already stayed together in an upper room for most of the 40 days between His death and His ascension. Now they had continued to wait for His promise—the Holy Spirit—for ten more days.
I wonder what they expected would happen when the Holy Spirit came. This sudden wind and the tongues of fire that landed on each of them must have shocked even these devoted followers of Jesus. I imagine that once they realized what was happening, they experienced a flood of incredible joy! After a time of waiting, God suddenly responded in an overwhelming way.
When we think of “sudden happenings” in Scripture, we must remember the words recorded in Luke 2:13:
Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests.”
Certainly these shepherds shook in their homespun clothing to see such a sight: the coming of this new-born Messiah—the One for whom watchers had prayed and had anticipated for so long a time.
The apostle Paul took a routine “business trip” to Damascus and we read this account in Acts 9:3:
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
Later, after Paul had begun working for his new “Boss,” Paul shared a missionary adventure with his friend Silas. We read of these two adventurers in Acts 16:25-26. They had been imprisoned for speaking about Jesus. The Scripture tells us:
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.
We should allow these accounts of the sudden action of God to give us confidence and renewed faith that God will always answer our prayers, even though we may have waited for a very long time. When God decides to act, nothing will stop Him from suddenly fulfilling His will. When His sovereign plan comes together, circumstances that ordinarily just wouldn’t work out can suddenly fall into place.
As we think back over our lifetimes of knowing God through Jesus, we must have at least one account when we have seen this character trait of God acting suddenly. Let this personal memory and the recorded accounts in the Scriptures encourage us today. When God wills it, it will happen! And often, it will happen suddenly.
