heart sick ...

yesterday i wrote about hope. today i opened my devotional to an entry i’ve been avoiding to find romans 5:3-5 as the focus scripture. then i watched an old episode of dr. quinn medicine woman (how i miss that show!) where sulley and dr. mike each struggle with the conflict of hoping for a child, while fearing the pain of disappointment. have i mentioned that i love when life lines up like that?

proverbs 13:12 says that “hope deferred makes a heart sick.” the traditional interpretation is that having to wait for the fulfillment of a desire makes your heart sick. but i also think it can be said that waiting without hope makes a heart sick. it’s not so much the waiting, but the attitude of the heart while waiting. are you waiting with confident expectation, or with doubt and impatience?

today’s devotion focused on the challenge of continuing to hope when we are forced to wait. in 1 samuel 8, despite the fact that samuel had served faithfully as a judge, and despite the fact that God had promised a king of His choosing, the people demanded that a king be appointed NOW!

a sick heart cannot make wise decisions.

instead of being willing to wait for God’s best, they wanted what everyone else had, even at the cost of their freedom. verse 20 says that they wanted a king so he would fight their battles.

how much have we sacrificed for the sake of an easy way out?

and as if all the things that we lose when we don’t wait aren’t bad enough, verse 7 tells us that not waiting is also rejecting God. we are telling Him that we don’t need Him, that He can’t be trusted, that we don’t believe He is who He says He is. i know how much it hurts when anyone even suggests those things about me. how much more must it hurt God when we say there is no reason to hope?

our reason to hope can be found in the previous chapter, in a prayer from the promised king, who knew what it was to wait ...

Sovereign LORD, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant. (1 samuel 7:28)