Hope?

Prov 13:12

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

I pondered this a while and wasn’t sure why the Bible would say that deferred hope is a problem. After all, don’t we hope in our salvation culminating in eternal glory in heaven? Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” So, hope in the Christian sense is deferred until we go to be with Jesus or He calls us home.

Likewise, when a desire is fulfilled, does it give us life? That also doesn’t seem to jive with Christian faith. It isn’t that we can’t enjoy some things in this world as 1 Timothy 6:17 says, “God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy.”

I had to ask Matthew Henry what he thought about it, and I had to do a head smack. The proverb isn’t talking about eternal life but is a warning about putting out hope in the wrong things. When we our hope is in the things of this world and we don’t get what we hoped for, we are disappointed. When we do get what we hoped for, we get a temporal boost to our feelings. Neither of these things are necessarily wrong, but some people crash and burn when they don’t get what they want. Some people get what they want and then they just want more of what the world has to offer.

The lesson for me is to make sure that I remember that the proverbs often present a worldly perspective. I looked at other translations and they didn’t help – which is the first thing I normally do. So the second thing for me is to look at commentaries when something isn’t clear or doesn’t make sense. Finally, I always need to look to my hope in Christ for everything or I may end up with heartache or misplaced joy.