“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Deferred is a strange word to me.

I know what it means but the depth of it is hard to grasp especially when it’s paired in a phrase with “hope”. The words can’t be separated to pack the punch they need to. They have to be held as one unit.

“Hope deferred” is really defined as the delay of a deep longing.

Whew. Do you feel that down deep. Hits you right in the soul doesn’t it.

We have shallow longings and deep longings. And they are very different.

Our shallow longings may be met quickly. Ice cream, Thai food, entertainment. We live in a world of instant gratification. We aren’t used to waiting. We aren’t used to much of anything being deferred. So we are very out of practice with HOPE being deferred.

We don’t even have to wrestle with things very often. “What is that guy’s name in that move?” We just ask one of our many robots and they tell us.

I was listening to the Good Faith Podcast (which is awesome by the way) and they had a lady on who said that a huge part of our lives as believers is wrestling.

God named Jacob Israel AFTER he wrestled him. Israel means “he struggles with God.”

We, as people who seek God, are supposed to be wrestlers. Strugglers WITH him.

But we are out of practice in wrestling in our every day lives. She was suggesting practicing this by NOT asking Siri your question. Just wrestling with it for a little bit. Practicing not knowing. Practicing the struggle in small insignificant ways, and later when you have something big to wrestle with, that muscle might be less prone to spasm.

I think the same is true for hope.

Somehow in all my small hopes being met so quickly, I see myself loosing practice in waiting for the big hopes.

My hope muscle spasms.

Is that why despair can set in so quickly in our times?

Are we out of the practice of hope?

Is hope a spiritual discipline?

Is unmet longing a way of resilience and weight lifting for our souls?

John Eldredge says… “We are offered a chance to live from the end backwards.”

What if I thought of that every day.

What has God promised me? What is at the end?

John Marc Comer says “Hope is the absolute expectation of the coming good based on the character of God.”

What God says is true. It is. He says he will redeem all things. I believe that. That is in his character. I have seen it time and time again.

He will make ALL things new.

He will bring justice and peace and hope and make all that is broken restored.

He has overcome the world.

He is restoring this world. Resurrecting it. For me. And you.

What if I lived from the end backward.

What if I live from the place of my longings fulfilled. That is the “tree of life!” (remember the verse above.)

Waterdeep has an old song that I love. “It’s a long hard road with a good good end.”

I wonder what might happen if we follow John’s Eldredge’s advice and start living from the end backwards.

What if we start living from strength to strength, from hope to hope.

Our lives might become a long hard road with a good good end.

We all want abs in a six pack…but maybe we should want hope in a six pack too. Hope muscles. Hope training. Living from the end backwards.

And to again paraphrase Rabbi Sachs… hope is not optimism, it’s courage.

Be strong and courageous, wrestling and struggling, full of HOPE because you have heard and expect the coming good.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/good-good-end/259603988?i=259603991

“I will make peace your governor and well being your ruler. No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise. The sun will no more be your light by day, nor will the brightness of the moon shine on you, for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun will never set again, and your moon will wane no more; the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of sorrow will end.” (Isaiah 60:5,17-20)