Hope deferred makes the heart sick: but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12 (KJV)
When you were a child, did you ever want something so bad that you just knew that when Christmas morning came around you would find it under the tree?
Or maybe your mother took you to see the real Santa Claus and you took him a list as long as your arm. Then when you started opening your gifts, nothing you unwrapped was what you had hoped for; you got clothes instead. Your parents bought what you needed and not what you wanted.
My dad, growing up in the great depression, said that sometime they would get an apple or an or orange and usually a pair of shoes which they never wore in the summertime because they needed good shoes in the cold of winter.
One year when they got a banana, they didn’t know what to do with it; they had never seen one before. They didn’t know whether to eat the peel or the inside. It didn’t take them long to figure it out. Most of the time, because they were so poor, they had no hope at Christmastime or any other time.
Maybe Tomorrow…
Do you have hope in God? Do you have a hope that someday your health will be better? Maybe the next doctor will figure out what is making you sick and will be able to fix it? Or the next place you apply for a job you will be hired? Or, you will be able to afford a dependable car? Or, and the list goes on and on and on. Maybe, because you prayed and asked the Lord to help you with something, and it didn’t happen or it hasn’t happened yet, you gave up on God and quit praying altogether.
You are not alone; your hope has been delayed and you have become sick at heart. Perhaps it is time for you to, once again pull on your combat boots, get up, get out and say to yourself like the Psalmist, “Why are you cast down, O my soul? and why are you disquieted in me? Hope again in God: for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His presence.” What do you think friend? Is it time for you to change your way of thinking and believe again? Just asking.
