Waiting Room Living Key Words: Faith

Tonight I will teach at Woman to Woman on the topic It Takes a Covenant, one of my most favorite topics because of the way embracing the Covenant helped me face the most difficult waiting room of my life. My heart's desire is that other women will understand how much what they believe dictates their own response to the daily tasks of life, whether in a well-lit, happy waiting room, or a dark, dreary place.

In preparation for tonight I found this article that I wrote four years after the death of our son, Mark. It took me back to a raw place but reminds me of how critical our worldview is when challenged by life's circumstances.

Life was good. An old man commented about their family, "You have a millionaire's family - a boy and a girl! You are rich!" And indeed, although not wealthy according to finances, they felt rich. Within seconds, their sense of well-being vanished. Fear invaded their souls and they longed for God to assure them of His presence. Psalm 27:13-14 was their anchor: "I am confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Surely God's definition of "goodness in the land of the living" was to bring back their three-year-old son from this mysterious coma. With assurance of God's promise, they waited for the Lord to work His miracle. Hundreds, no thousands of believers were storming heaven for their child's life. "Yes," they thought with peace and joy, "God will glorify Himself by giving us back our son. What a testimony of God's grace to an unbelieving world our son's miracle will be." They believed God. They would gratefully wait for His intervention. One year later, they read the same passage and wondered what it meant. "Perhaps," they thought, "God hasn't healed our child because we don't have enough faith."

Have you ever thought God did not keep His promise because you did not have enough faith?

Everyone of us is in a waiting room. Either because of circumstances or because we are a member of the human race. What is your waiting room? Raising children, marriage, a broken marriage, rebellious children, a job you hate, broken friendships, grief, sexual abuse? You fill in the blank. Perhaps life is really great right now - no problems. But if you don't see yourself in God's waiting room you will miss out on treasures that only come when you grasp this foundation of life. Living in God's waiting room with purpose takes a Covenant. It takes the Covenant of Redemption to make our village a community where we can experience all we are in Christ. But the Covenant does more than that: it takes the Covenant to give us a vision for living in this waiting room called Life. I have begun to realize that in my own journey every means of healing that God has used in the past four years I can trace back to the promise of the Covenant and the privileges of the Covenant.

For instance, at the hospital in the middle of the horrendous confusion and anguish of Mark's death in a split second of clarity I remembered specifically thinking, "God is going to use this tragedy for good and to build His kingdom." I'm sorry to say that my next thought was not one of submission and peace. Instead it was resistance and anger. I would not submit to that thought and was furious that this was God's plan for our family. But the thought that God would bring His good and accomplish his purposes through our grief came from my understanding of the Covenant. I received this timely note from a friend shortly after Mark's death

God Himself has said, I will not in any way fail you nor give you up nor leave you without support. [I will] not, [I will] not, [I will] not in any degree leave you helpless nor forsake you nor let [you] down (relax My hold on you) [Assuredly not!] Hebrews 13:5, Amplified.

Why did these words give us hope? Because of the Covenant

In my saner moments I could see that my disappointment and anger toward God's plan for my family made my brokenness more excruciating. Was God disappointed by my reactions? Yet I felt love and security from Him, like a mother comforting her child. I knew that in spite of my imperfections, I was in His grip. Why? Because of the Covenant.

When we cried out to God that we could not do this, that He had taken us farther than we could go, His Words in 1 Corinthians 10:13 gave us hope:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.

Why did these words give us hope? Because of the Covenant.

When God gave us treasures of encouragement through the covenant community we knew it was because of the Covenant.

When we were tempted to think that this journey into an earthly hell may be because our faith is not strong, the Covenant reminded us that was a lie.

The Covenant equipped us for the darkness. But the Covenant also equips us for the light - to live in the tension between the already and the not yet.

God's Covenant of Redemption is the heart and soul of my faith journey. I have purpose for every day living because of the Covenant. I am so passionate about this topic that Chuck and I co-authored Treasures of Faith, Living Boldly in View of God's Promises, a study of Hebrews 11. So, do you sometimes think your life stinks because you don't have enough faith?

In His grip,

Sharon For more information about Treasures of Faith, visit our website: Treasures of Faith book page

Over the next few weeks Chuck and I will add some joint posts on our blogs. This one is from Chuck.

"All you have to do is preach through Hebrews 11 and I'll do the rest." Sharon had just shared one of our dreams with me. She loved Hebrews 11 and wanted to write a book on what she called "God's Waiting Room." She also wanted us to co-author the book. She said my task would be to research and preach on each character in the chapter. She would condense the preaching into book form.

I responded, "As long as all I have to do is preach. Yes, I can do that."

It was fun to see how excited she was as we mapped out a timeline and talked through the process we would follow.

As the sermon series unfolded and Sharon transcribed every message and organized the material, we began to see that preaching doesn't always lend itself to writing. This process would be much more difficult than we expected. I preached fourteen sermons on Abraham alone. This promised to be a grueling process.

Anyone who writes books knows that publishing dates often get moved up. But this was not an option for us. Every year the Women in the Church of the Presbyterian Church in America recommends a small group Bible study . That year they were holding a national conference and would introduce our book as the recommended small group study for that following year. Our publisher endorsed our plan and we committed to a detailed timeline for getting finished chapters to our editor. While it was difficult we met every deadline.

Through circumstances beyond our control, the publication of the book was delayed. The Women in the Church leadership told our publisher that if it was not in their offices by a specific date, they would not be able to recommend it as the small group Bible study.

Suddenly we had about two months to edit, finalize and publish not only the book but a detailed Leaders Guide. The editing process had not even begun. Anyone with any sense knew that we were embarking on an impossible task. But everyone involved agreed it was worth trying.

Let the writing marathon begin. Every few days we received two edited chapters from our publisher., one for the book and one for the Leaders Guide. After a couple of weeks of non-stop writing that started earlier every day and lasted until late at night, I knew Sharon could not keep up this pace. One of the themes of the book was cultivating community and becoming channels of God's compassion. I told Sharon she needed to practice what she was preaching. Ask two of her writing friends to help her write the Leaders Guide. These two women joined the writing team and their fingerprints are all over the Leaders Guide. We wouldn't have met our deadline without them.

Fifty-seven sermons and months of intense writing later, Treasures of Faith: Living Boldly in View of God's Promises arrived in the offices of the Presbyterian Church in America in time to meet the deadline. That fall it was introduced to several thousand women at the conference in Atlanta as the recommended Bible study for the year.

This book is filled with in-depth Bible study that gets the reader into the skin of each person in our spiritual family. Sharon says that sometimes she couldn't see the keyboard or computer screen as she wrote because of how emotionally connected she felt to the biblical person she was writing about.

We are offering Treasures of Faith at a reduced price and including an Introductory CD interview in which Sharon and I talk about the writing process and this study. Click here to order. We also have a Small Group Study Package that includes 10 books, 10 Bonus CD's and a FREE Leaders Guide for a savings of $78 off the retail price.

This book traces our spiritual family tree and will change the way you think about your spiritual roots. For more details visit our Treasures of Faith book page

Remember Sharon's promise that all I would have to do is preach? Not. I'll share more about the book in the next few weeks.

In His Grip,
Dr. Chuck Betters