Reviving deferred hope

Very recently I happened to see something very unusual happen in my city. It was a spring morning and I had just sent my children off to school and was about to go for a walk. As soon as I left home and headed for my walking trail I noticed something was different. There was a heavy mist that had come over our neighbourhood and settled like a white cloud all around. It was unnerving because it wasn’t that early in the day for mist and yet it didn’t seem in a hurry to leave. What was a little scary was that it completely obliterated our view of buildings, people and the road itself. I watched as neighbours took their cars out and very gingerly made their way through it to the main road. The sun was up but it felt gloomy because the sun’s rays hadn’t yet penetrated through the vapor. I decided to ditch my walk and instead went up to my terrace to get a better view and I was surprised at how much clearer the situation looked from way up there. I could still not make out buildings nor a nearby lake but I could see the enormity of the cloud-like mist that was all around and I could feel the cold air swirl around me and settle on me with its dampness. After an hour of this, the sun’s heat began to filter through the mist and eventually all of it evaporated, leaving behind a confused population in their all too familiar heat!

Watching the heavy fog gave me a better picture of what discouragement looks like and how it can threaten to take over our lives. It could start with just one bit of bad news, followed by an unkind comment from a friend and begin to snowball into larger issues that eventually leave us in total despair with a feeling of helplessness. I remember facing one situation after another where my hope felt dashed to pieces. The verse from Proverbs chapter 13 bounced around my head till I opened my bible and found it. The writer talks of how the heart gets sick when hope is deferred and that was something I could completely relate to. It was like the heart got broken repeatedly till you just got numb and didn’t feel anything. To feel anything took too much effort so why bother was my rationale. The latter part of that verse though intrigued me: ‘A longing fulfilled is a tree of life’. What did that mean? Why was it so cryptic yet familiar? Well, the tree of life was the tree in the garden of Eden and it also appeared again in the book of Revelation. It was also associated in the book of Proverbs with a kind word spoken (Prov 15 verse 4) and wisdom herself (Prov 3 verse 18). When we look at a ’longing fulfilled‘ as ’a tree of life’ we are observing something of eternal value and significance because the tree of life in the garden of Eden had fruit that if eaten would give a person eternal life. Today, through Jesus we have eternal life but many of the things we desire and long for don’t have eternal benefits or lasting impact. So when our hope is deferred, it's possible that God is moving our focus off of ourselves and onto Him and His kingdom.

When discouragement creeps in, much like that mist, it can completely cut off your vision and keep you groping for things in your immediate reach. It is important that you commit all of your discouragement to God and start to refine who you are hoping in and what you are hoping for.

To practice: Choose to hope no matter what

To hope is to live in joyful anticipation of all that God is going to do. Many times that involves what God will do with even our current despair and sadness. Will you commit yourself afresh to God completely, along with every one of your dashed dreams?