Proverbs 13:12 Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.
This is a word of healing and restoration for those who lost hope in hoping, who lost all expectations to hope. You could have been so disappointed that you have difficulty in raising your hopes up and your imagination to run free. It can be a disappointment of any kind, whether is it a person, a fight, a relationship, controlling parents, school results, an unresolved issue, a jilted date, broken promises, unrequited love, health issues, a broken gadget or just this world in general, as long you are still experiencing the pain of dissapointment and the fear to expect better things in life, this word is for you.
I have myself been wrecked by disappointments many times enough to be inspired to write this post for others who may be in the same boat. By grace through faith, God is so good to turn our giants into bread that energizes us instead of putting us down, so hopefully this post will be bread for many. I pray that this word would edify and bless you richly as Holy Spirit minister His healing power in you, soaking up all the bitter residue in your heart, and overflow your vessel with His death-defying love.
Firstly, the love of God is not dictated by your circumstances, so neither should you judge His love by your circumstances. Good days, bad days, God loves you just the same and He promises to make all things work together for good.
Any hint of condemnation such as, ‘this is your punishment from God or you are unworthy of good things’ - all of that are nothing but lies - lies to deceive you into thinking God doesn’t care or love you anymore. That’s the agenda of the devil, to put you at war with God because he knows even if he can never defeat God, he can still have a go at His children. But remember the devil is an impotent serpant, a toothless lion and a defeated loser.
God is for you and will always be for you and He will always protect you and love you with an everlasting love. He believe that you are worth it, you deserve every good thing and He would like to remove that thorn of disappointment from your heart, fill your mind with peace and gladness, so that you will be more at ease to hope again, without anxieties or fear.
It pleases God so much, for you to hope freely.
Give that thorn to God today and let Him overwhelm you with His love to extinguish all fear which the devil had tried to smear on you. Don’t fear the future because Jesus will be with you. Even when you encounter disappointments in the future, just remember that you are still loved and better days are awaiting for you. Our fears are prison walls that keep us in, to keep us out from liberty and joy. They are barriers that we think are protecting us which in fact, is holding us captive.
If you are able to recgonize by now that no matter what you do, you can’t undo what’s broken nor purify by what’s contaminated, don’t be dismayed, you are in fact on the right track for something even better! You are on track for Jesus’s saving grace that requires none of your self-maontainece, and only Jesus alone to make all things new in your life. Being saved in Jesus’s definition, would be restful receiving that needs no striving, the performance is His alone, and His duty to be your Savior whose goodness is translated as I-AM.
Even if all you have left are bitter memories and a bleeding heart, you can still give them to Jesus, He desires so much to take care of them so that you can finally be at peace. Anything broken and buried in dirt, God wants them, because all He wants is you, just the way you are even if it means handling with dirt, Jesus is no stranger to shame and pain; He was literally broken and humiliated in public for our sake.
Give your pain to Jesus, and free your heart to receive fresh joy from heaven. His love will turn bottomless sorrow into radical joy, just as how He turns tasteless water into sweetest wine. Give your broken trust to Jesus, to have His in exchange. The cross is about the exchange of trust - exchanging your broken trust and dashed hopes, in exchange for Jesus as your trust and hope.
Jesus is your unfailing Hope who will not falter even when your trust falters, He remains steadfast even when troubles overwhelm you, He is the Rock you can rely on for your rescue, He carries you on His strong shoulders and He will never let you go. You can rely on Jesus whenever and wherever. Even when you are faithless, He remains faithful.
Good news is, you don’t have to rely on your broken trust to hope for good things. That will be way too demanding and tiring. God loves you too much to dehumanize you into a faith-producing-machine, it is His burden to impart freely for you to partake, because Faith is a gift, not your salary. Faith isn’t produced, faith is received. Likewise, Hope isn’t produced by our merits, Hope is given by the Holy Spirit which is like a Jesus-tree that flourishes effortlessly (Tree of Life) on its own, so why are we wearing ourselves out?
We have nothing to add to Jesus’s faith, as He is the author and finisher of faith, we rest in Jesus’s faith for faith to work out. How liberating, how refreshing that is! You don’t have to strive for more faith or more confidence, you just have to enter into the rest of Jesus’s unwavering faith. Our trust may have loopholes here and there, but Jesus’s faith is perfect and devil-proof. The devil can no longer accuse of your faith, if it is Jesus’s faith, the God Almighty having the final say.
Hope that puts you at ease beloved, to surrender all your thorns to Jesus and to hope freely. You are accepted into the Beloved and the Beloved’s faith. Amen :)
