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I happened to log onto my Alltel account to make a payment this past morning and this is what I saw:

I can’t tell you how exciting it is to know that something is actually happening! I’ve wanted an iPhone for years but because I live in the technological wastelands of South Dakota, I’ve never had the opportunity to have coverage until now!

As I savored the thought of beautiful apps, poor customer service, and phone that may or may not stay connected depending on how I held it, I immediately thought of this verse:

Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Proverbs 13:12

I don’t want to insinuate that the iPhone would complete my life, but I think that this concept of hope deferred is something that is very much a factor in our society.

Hope deferred. It’s a horrible concept that something that you long for so badly would be put off until some other time. Hope deferred ravages your mind causing doubt and confusion. It permeates your sense of order and creates mass chaos that blind you. Hope deferred not only makes the heart sick, but it has the desire to twist your mind into becoming bitter and jealous.

It’s because of hope deferred that people give up on their dreams and settle for a life that is far from what God has purposed and planned for them. Hope deferred feeds the insecurity and speaks into our lives saying, “It’s never going to happen, so quit trying and give up.” Hope deferred kills us.

The thing about this horrible truth of hope deferred is that the proverb immediately follows it up with the idea that a desire fulfilled is a tree of life. That’s the key to making it through hope deferred.

When we understand that when our desire is fulfilled it will give us live more abundantly than we could ever imagine. That desire will put roots to our dream that will pull us down and lock us in the soil in such a way that hope deferred loses it’s destructive pattern in our life.

Hope deferred may make our heart sick, but when God is ready to use us and to fulfill our desire in His perfect timing, that’s when hope deferred changes into a life that’s well worth the wait.

So my question for you is this – Do you wait for the life that God has purposed and planned for you or are do you succumb to hope deferred and walk away from everything?