(By Michelle Snippe)
When was the last time you fervently hoped for something? Probably not that long ago. Maybe yesterday or last week or as far back as last month.
Maybe you were hoping for something important and big, like a negative test result. Or a positive one. It could have been a hope for something less significant like finally getting to go out for dinner without the kids.
Regardless of which end of the spectrum your most recent hope has fallen, the truth is, we are all holding cherished hopes close to our hearts.
For things to happen. For things to start or for things to stop. For things to change. For good things.
And when time ticks by and nothing gives, hope fades into disappointment. It declines as bad news bumps into our hope for good. It wanes as we wait and watch circumstances get worse instead of better. It gets sidelined as we sit in the silence of no answers.
Eventually, we are left with hearts feeling wounded and grieved.
There’s a proverb written about that: Proverbs 13:12. The first half of the verse says this:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
The hope in this verse goes far beyond “I hope to go out for dinner tonight.” It’s an expectation that is intense and drawn out over a long period of time. It comes from a word that ultimately means to wait continuously, often, for something entirely out of our control.
Other translations call this hope deferred an “unrelenting disappointment,” or hope that is “postponed,” “delayed” or “put off.”
Yet, however it is worded, this suspended hope can be agonizing, frustrating, and painfully heartbreaking all at the same time.
Jesus knew it would be. And He knew we would need something to hold onto.
Something far bigger than our dreams for a desired outcome.
Something that runs immeasurably deeper than our longing for change.
Something more secure than an intense expectation.
The psalmist shares, “I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope” (Psalm 130:5).
While we wait, we hope. And the verse tells us our hope is found in the precious, printed words that have been given to us by God. Words of wisdom, promise, and truth. Words that preach God’s character and all He has faithfully done in the past.
Hope grows in a heart that is watered with the word of God.
To this, we say, yes, Lord. But it’s hard. Some days, excruciating. Heartsickness is real, but, sister, so is the remedy. When the psalmist was at a desperately low place he cried out, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”
In his next breath, he proclaimed this message to his soul: “Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, my salvation.” “Yet" means that while we are waiting, longing, and hoping, we’re also holding tightly to the One who is our true hope, our Source of hope. It means that, in the middle of the pain of waiting for our hopes to come to pass, we choose to praise Him regardless of outcomes.
God doesn’t ask us to stop hoping for good news, positive outcomes, or change. But what He does desire is for our hope to be ultimately set on Him.
I don’t know if there has ever been a time when we’ve needed more hope. As the world shifts and sin rampantly ruins everything that God once called good, there is no question in my mind that heartache is real. And a certainty in life.
But so is God, sweet friend. So is God, our only true and secure source of hope.
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