Look forward

Press the play button to watch the video above or press 'more' to read the transcript of the daily devotion below. Please read Acts 1:6-14 (use your own Bible or use the link above to access the in-App Bible).

What have you lost recently?

Keys, glasses, a sock to make a matching pair? Perhaps you have lost something that has resulted in ongoing consequences like a passport when you were expecting to go on holiday. You will know, therefore, not only that sense of frustration but the stress of retracing your steps and looking repeatedly in hope that the lost would be found.

Maybe when I asked what have you lost recently your first thought was sadly the loss of a loved one, for which I am sorry. Grief leads us often on a quest to find our loved one again, to connect, to remember, to feel, to smell, to hear, and experience something of them one more time to the point where it breaks our heart, loss is unsettling.

The singer Cat Burns wrote “…grief is love with no home.”

The disciples lost their friend, their saviour, their Rabboni at the cross, yet the resurrection gloriously announced the conclusion of death’s curse and they were reunited again. But the tangible connection was short lived when Jesus ascended. We don’t have insight into how the disciples felt but we know they simply kept looking for what they had lost: ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven?’

What can we note from their moment of stationary faith?

- They heard and acted upon the messengers of God because remaining in the place of loss does not change our situation but can cripple our future.

- They chose to keep in the company of believers who shared their resurrection hope because finding our tribe is good for our soul.

- They sought the calming balm of prayer together, because it can stabilise our uncertainty and restore us in grief.

The disciples were not going to find Jesus again if they stayed on that mount, they would find Him in the drama of Pentecost, when all that was lost would be restored in tangible ways beyond what they could ask or imagine, empowering this eclectic tribe of women and men.

Let us pray: Lord, help us not to stand still but look forward in the places you call us to. Amen.