Please click the play button on the pink bar below to begin the podcast. No added software is needed. 🙂
[smart_track_player url=”http://api.spreaker.com/download/episode/8825742/wh_betsy_childs.mp3″ title=”Seasons of Waiting w/ Betsy Childs Howard” artist=”Women’s Hope” color=”#b53c72″ social=”true” social_twitter=”true” social_facebook=”true” ]
What are You waiting for?
In her new book, Seasons of Waiting, Betsy Childs Howard writes a warmly inviting as well as practically challenging book that confronts the instant gratification approach to life that believers have increasingly plunged prey to.
Betsy challenges us to fine tune our focus and our hearts in how we wait upon the Lord as we learn to lean hard and wait well for our Lord in 5 specific Seasons:
- Waiting for a Spouse
- Waiting for a Child
- Waiting for Healing
- Waiting for a Home
- Waiting for a Prodigal
If you are looking at the list and thinking none of these seasons of waiting apply to you personally at the moment, know that the overarching theme of waiting well will apply in the unique season you may find yourself in right now.
Betsy gives personal examples and stories that apply to each season as well as biblical examples of waiting upon the Lord. She helps us to see how waiting is a part of discipline leading us to share in Christ’s holiness while exposing the idols that are ever present in our hearts.
However, Betsy is also aiding us to see that our stories of waiting are redemptive in nature as they point to the Gospel for the reader as well as the watching world. She is also realistic in reminding us our waiting may not be realized in this life with the answer we desire, yet aiding us to recognize the greatest glory may not be seen here on earth… “Seeing Jesus is NOT a consolation prize!” Yet, she also reminds us that waiting on the Lord is intended to grow and strengthen our faith. How we respond to the season of waiting God has providentially placed in our life is a choice we make.
Rather, Who Are You Waiting For?
One of my favorite quotes in the book states, “ Although you may be in a place where you feel forgotten by God, ask yourself, are you really the first person He has ever lost track of? Did His everlasting kindness run out when it came to you?” She gives us food for thought in how to ask ourselves and others important theological questions when our season of waiting has us in doubt.
Betsy helps us practically to live with purpose and alertness no matter the season of waiting we may be in while we wait for heaven personally as well as a community with the aim of wanting God more than the gifts he gives us… “The presence of God in the darkness of our trials is a small foretaste of the presence of God that we will know in the eternal light of His glory. Betsy reminds us in this short but encouraging book, it is ultimately the Who we are waiting for…JESUS.
As a Biblical Counselor, I have no doubt this book will be a solid encouragement to any believer whether in a current season of waiting identified in her book, as well as any other season they find themselves in by the grace and providence of God. It has helped me in my own walk to shift my thinking more toward my Savior and my eternal home, Heaven.
