Waiting Room Living
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
(Originally Posted At : February 9, 2011 1:44 PM | Posted By : Sharon Betters)