Hope deferred…One more week

Have you ever had that fitness instructor who would tell you, “Only 10 more reps?” At the end of a difficult workout, almost there, muscles burning and then the countdown comes and you have hope! “I can make it, I can do 10 more,” you tell yourself. The instructor starts to count, “ten, nine, eight, eight, eight, seven, six, five, five, five…” and your hope fades as you crash to the carpet?

Something about this year feels a little bit like that doesn’t it? Just one more rep… a hundred more times. One more thing. One more time. Just a little while longer—and grab your life jacket.

We start strong, and then we have moments where we are cranky, tired, worn, edgy and just plain DONE with extensions and exceptions.

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” —Proverbs 13:12a

Sure does! Preach!!

We all had hope that 2020 would be the best year ever. Or at least normal! But there’s talk of making 2020 a curse word—its only saving-grace being that we are all in this together. The inside joke that everyone is in on.

So it was all supposed to blow over after a month or so, and then it was a couple months, another week, another week, then at the end of Summer… and now? We have all realized that no one really knows when things will return to normal. If they return to normal. Keeping our mindsets positive is getting harder by the day!

So how do we stay optimistic, joyful, and hopeful with all this deferring?

A friend recently shared about a season of difficulty and crying out to the Lord day after day, week after week, and year after year. Six years to be exact. The miracle came in year 7.

He was praying this verse, telling the Lord he was heart-sick and tired. The Lord asked him, “What is the last part of the verse?”

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a promise fulfilled is a tree of life!” Proverbs 13:12

A tree of life! That means that when we can’t see the tree, and when the promise isn’t fulfilled yet…there’s no tree. But there is a seed!

If the promise isn’t fulfilled yet, then it HAS to be a seed, because the Word of God doesn’t lie.

This was SUCH a revelation to me! I honestly just sat still and pondering a while on his words.

Can I have a human moment? I have shared a little about my health issues over the last year or so and I have to admit… I get tired and worn and really cranky sometimes. Verses like these:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick” –Proverbs 13:12
“Count it all joy” –James 1:2
“light and momentary troubles” –2 Corinthians 4:17

These verses confused me and frustrated me. I finally started just ignoring them completely. What do they mean? How do they bring hope? Don’t know, not gonna look. Its safer.

I was afraid to pray for my own healing. I did pray for it, I kind of believed it. I spoke the words, I complained about it, I asked others to…maybe their faith would heal more than my half-hearted attempts?

They believed in my healing more than me!

It wasn’t that I thought their prayers were more powerful, its that I knew the heart counts. I knew they believed in my healing more than me. I kinda believed they were more powerful.

I was AFRAID to pray. What if I prayed, and Jesus didn’t heal me?

And lets just dive in deeper here since my weakness of faith is all out there anyhow…I was afraid He wouldn’t. If He didn’t heal me, was He really there for me, did He really care? If Jesus doesn’t even like you…what does that mean?

Oh the lies we believe.

So I was going to work through it all, do my homework, take all the supplements, go to all the appointments, and then give Jesus credit all while I did His homework.

Hello Pride? You guys. I am SO human. Please tell me you have human moments like this too?

I was scared Jesus would let me down, so I wouldn’t risk it. I would just DO IT FOR HIM. The things we think.

So this “A promise fulfilled is a tree of life” business? It messed with me in the best way!

If I was still not feeling well… my promise was just a seed!

A seed that I had been neglecting completely.

Imagine that you have been given a field where the Lord said there would be trees and grass and a place to sit. You look and see nothing. Just bare dirt and a small stream. You think “Well, He promised there were trees and there aren’t any, so I’ll just give it away and buy land WITH trees”

You come back years later to see the most beautiful park-like setting, and ask the new owner.. what did you do?

They answer… We just watered the dirt every day for a while to keep the dust down while we prayed about what God wanted to do. And all this sprang up! There must have been seeds in the dirt!

So often we give away the promise because God has asked us to tend to our faith and trust what He has said over what we can see.

The seeds are in the dirt! They’re already there friends. All we have to do, is faithfully show up and spend time with God so He can show us where to water.

His promises are GOOD, His word is TRUE and He is always faithful.

Still have yucky days. Lots of them, but knowing there is a seed in the ground…I have hope for the praying and the answering that the Lord will do. Whatever the answer looks like—I’m pretty sure God’s been doing His own homework this whole time.

I’ve just been doing it twice!