Proverbs 13:12

Proverbs 13:12 "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life."

The human body needs a healthy heart to be healthy and to live a full life.  For that simple and good reason, medical professionals focus on heart health.  Clogged arteries, thin artery walls or heart disease are all major threats to the welfare of the human body.  Doctors take these and other heart conditions very seriously and try to get their patients to take them just as seriously.  Patients who don’t address their sick hearts are playing with fire and eventually face a shortened life.  Such is the case with the human soul as it needs a healthy spiritual heart to be strong.  For that simple and good reason, spiritual professionals focus on spiritual heart health.  Just as not eating healthy foods lead to a weak heart, not consuming hope leads to a sick heart.  Pastors, counselors and teachers don’t focus on a balanced diet of vegetables and grains but we are to focus on a steady diet of hope.

This proverb soundly teaches that a deferred diet of hope hurts the heart.  Deferring, or pushing off hope makes the heart sick.  Thinking hope isn’t necessary in the moment is very dangerous.  So many of us think we don’t need to eat healthy in the moment but one day, we’ll feel poorly and after a few tests, we’ll be disappointed to find out our heart is sickly.  A lack of heart-healthy nutrition over time makes the heart sick.  Such is the case with the heart of the soul.  A lack of hope over time makes the heart sick.  If we push off a steady diet of hope, one day we’re going to feel spiritually, emotionally and psychologically poor and after a few tests with our spiritual provider, we’ll be disappointed to find out our heart is sickly.
 
How is your diet of hope?  

Do you daily push off hope as it pertains to your marriage?  Do you consistently refuse to be hopeful as it pertains to your spouse’s flaws and failures?  Are you avoiding being hopeful about your wayward child?  Are you postponing hope for the country you’re living in until the politician you vote for gets elected?  Are you deferring hope for answered prayers?  Are you intentionally preventing yourself from hoping God will give you a spouse or a child?  Are you stopping yourself from hoping God will give you victory over sin because you keep failing?
 
People choose a daily diet of self-pity in order to avoid any future disappointment. People choose to see the worst in life in order to protect themselves from any potential letdown.  Pessimists resist hope because they see hope as a reckless and dangerous device bent on cruelty.  When we see the worst in things or in people and then convince ourselves that nothing will ever change, we’re do great harm to our heart.  When we foolishly write the future in order to avoid further disappointment, we’re thinning the walls of our spiritual arteries and weakening the muscle of our spiritual heart.  Intentionally pushing hope away makes the heart sick, which in turn shortens the spiritual life of our earthly existence.

The flip side of this proverb paints a picture of the health benefit hope brings to the soul.  The “desire cometh” is not referring to a person getting what they “desired” or hoped for.  The “desire that cometh” is hope itself since the definition of hope is simply desire with expectation.  The Bible is defining itself by using two different words to describe the same thing.  When we defer or push away hope, we make the heart sick.  When we let desire with expectation, or hope COME INTO our lives, we welcome a virtue that is like a tree of life.  This proverb is not merely teaching that we get heart broken when what we hope for doesn’t come but when we get what we hope for, we become happy.  This proverb is teaching us that hope offers incredible value to the soul.  This proverb is teaching us that hope is crucial for spiritual heart health.  It is teaching us that while we can’t control the circumstances in our lives, we can and we must feed our soul with a daily dose of hope.
 
Hope gives the heart health.  Hope in the heart gives the mind clarity.  Hope in the heart gives the will strength.  Hope in the heart gives the soul joy.  Hope is likened unto a tree of life whose fruit provides eternal life.  Hope keeps a person going in any trouble, trial or tragedy.  Hope keeps a spouse loving, talking and trying in a difficult marriage.  Hope keeps a patient eating, walking and praying in a painful illness.  Hope keeps a believer rebounding and fighting in the face of besetting sins.  Hope is the virtue that keeps a person sane, joyful and upright in any circumstance or relationship.  Without it, the heart gets sick and the person gets out.   The Psalmist of the 42nd and 43rd psalms understood the value of hope when he wrote on three occasions, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? HOPE thou in God.”  Jeremiah learned this when staring at a broken nation and feeling total despair in Lamentations 3.  Refusing to give up, he wrote in Lamentations 3:21-24, “This I recall to my mind, therefore have I HOPE. It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. The LORD is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I HOPE in him.”  He concluded in verse 26 that, “It is good that a man should both HOPE and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD.”
 
Paul the Apostle, in his own words, brought credibility to the value Solomon assigned hope when he put it in a category of three elite virtues in 1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now abideth faith, HOPE, charity, these three.”  Any spiritual long-term success is impossible without these three virtues, one of which is HOPE.  We can’t afford to push hope away nor can we afford to revisit it down the road.  It is as important to our spiritual well-being as nutritious foods are to our physical well-being.  Don’t let fear keep you from welcoming hope into your lives each and every morning.  Fear will tell you that Hope is dangerous and that it will cause you further pain down the road.  Wisdom will tell you that living without Hope is life-threatening and that your heart will get sick without it.  Have hope that God still answers prayer.  Have hope that God will help you get victory over your struggles.  Have hope that God will help you and your spouse have a better marriage.  Have hope that God will continue to work in your child’s life.  Have hope that God will guide you through the dark days of life.

Hope puts light in our eyes, a smile on our face and fuel in our tank.  When it comes to Hope, don’t listen to Fear – listen to Wisdom!