“Hope deferred makes the heart sick…” (Prov. 13:12, NKJV).
In my quiet time today, the Emmaus road encounter stirred my heart with joy. Then I opened PC Study Bible on my laptop, and found the surprise God had waiting there for me. The very same story that had just leapt out to me from Luke 24 just “happened” to be featured for the day on Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening devotional. I knew immediately that Holy Spirit wanted me to share with you what He was speaking. So here it is 😀.
The beginning chapters of Matthew and Luke should never be confined to use exclusively in December. By the same token, neither should we limit our meditation on the resurrection story to Holy Week. On the contrary, we need to intentionally study them at other moments so our hearts remember these narratives foundational to our faith are for every day of the year… for every minute of every hour, even!
For brevity’s sake, we’ll pick up our story today where Cleopas and his companion said mournfully to Jesus, “And we had our hopes up that he was the One…” (Luke 24:21, MSG). As you probably know, these two had no idea that it was the resurrected Savior they were talking to. They could not see the hope right in front of their eyes. All they could see was their pain.
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick,” says Proverbs. This is a perfect description of what those men were experiencing. You and I can relate to them, can’t we? In every single one of our lifetimes, we will go through seasons of “hope deferred.” Every last one of us will know what it feels like to have our hearts become sick over extinguished dreams. These two disciples of Jesus had their hopes up, they lamented. They had just watched those very hopes murdered in the most excruciating way ever invented by humans. Hope was now unbearably dead. Life had lost all of it its light.
Grief and disillusionment hung over their eyes like a shroud. They could not perceive anything else. Jesus’ promise to come back to them from death was not even on their radar. In their minds, His crucifixion was the agonizing end of the story.
You know, Jesus was so very patient with where they were at. He met them right there, and He journeyed with them. As they walked together, “…Beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself” (v. 27, NKJV). He explained it all to them. He poured into their hearts exactly what they were needing in those moments.
Up until that moment, they had refused to believe that He was alive, in spite of the personal testimony of their women. Disillusionment was too strong of a force over their souls. However, Jesus was not impatient over their slowness to believe. Instead, He came to them and ministered to them what they needed for the rebirth of their hope. His kindness, His presence, and His words birthed believing inside of them.
When you and I experience hope deferred, when life crushes the breath out of the dreams we used to have… Jesus will always meet us in exactly the same way He met these two men. He will come to where we are at and gently lift us up from there. He will speak His words of life to us until our hearts burn with them once again. In doing so, He will open our eyes to truly perceive Him, and the hope that has been right there with us the whole time. We will suddenly understand that it’s Him that’s been there all along, walking right by our side.
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Have you ever had your hope crushed, and then resurrected by Jesus?
Feeding On Jesus 
Reblogged this on Love & Love Alone.
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Thank you, friend!
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Oh my goodness yes! I’m giddy over here, lol! I had a “dashed hopes” experience recently and wrote about it and it is scheduled to publish this evening! I even referenced this same verse! God is good 😌 Your post here reminds me that God brought that hard circumstance full circle and left me with a faith stronger than it started. Only Him…!
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Aw I love that SO much! It never gets old, how generous Holy Spirit is to confirm that we are led of Him!! I looked for your post just now and didn’t see it yet — would you share the link here please? I don’t want to miss it!
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Oh, I’d love to! I don’t know if the link works before it is published, but it is scheduled for only 7 minutes from now. I will be back with it then. 😃
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Perfect! Thank you Mama Lava!
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Hi friend! Does this link work? https://mamalava.wordpress.com/2021/05/26/struggling-with-disappointment/
I know just how to post a link from my laptop, but I’m a bit more awkward with it on my phone 🤣
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Yep! Got it open and about to read! Yay!
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I prayed for the Lord’s wisdom and insight to be there as I work through a difficult situation. Your post along with a couple other things I have remembered this morning has lifted my hopes for a Godly resolution. Thanks.
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Thank You Jesus! I rejoice to hear this, Betty! Also, I really enjoyed visiting your site. You have a real knack for composing enticing titles that make me want to read your posts!
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Lots and lots of times. But God always makes a comeback. Oh the crushing feeling of “hope deferred,” but the greater feeling when God steps onto the scene with “hope renewed!” 🙌🏼
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YES He does!! Great is HIs faithfulness! And I sure am right there with you!
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Forgive me if I commented this before, but this again reminds me of a humorous spin on the old Footprints in the Sand image: a pilgrim notes two sets most of the time, but when it was most difficult, only one; he asks Jesus, “Why did you leave me alone in those hard times?” Jesus says, “That was when I was carrying you.”
In the humorous extension he goes on to say, “and those long grooves are where I dragged you kicking and screaming.” 😂
Yes, He has restored hope to me many times when I thought there could be none.
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Chuckling. Nope, you hadn’t shared that with me before. It blessed my evening with a good smile. And AMEN, to me too!!
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The Almighty God is always with us in times of crisis & merrymaking! Believe in Him & forget all worries 🙏🏾
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Amen and amen! Our ever present help in time of need AND rejoicing!
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Oh, my; I have often thought about that road to Emmaus passage. Luke 24:17 says that Jesus “explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning Himself.” Can you imagine having been there to hear Jesus go through the Old Testament, pointing out and explaining all the verses concerning Himself?! Wow. Also, that proverb about hope deferred is one of my favorites, including the second part: “but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
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Yes! That must have been truly beyond amazing, and marked them for the rest of their lives. How wonderful it is to be able to get into the riches of Scripture using our imagination of what the stories must have been like! Thank you so much for sharing this, Keith 😊
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I love sport, watching it and playing it. And with that comes a little bit of a competitive nature, less than some people but it still exists. There will always come a time when the team I am supporting, or the one I am playing for, will lose a game their was an expectation they would win. Feelings of disappointment follow, especially if I am watching a game with a friend who also supports the same team.
This is nowhere near as important a thing to hope about than some people have, but I’ve accepted that loving sport is a part of my life. Earlier in my life, experiencing this loss would spill over into other parts of my life. Examples include sleeping fewer hours because I was annoyed about the game, forgetting to eat, not wanting to go to work because of the deeply felt emotion.
Over time, Jesus has helped me remember why I enjoy sport in the first place. People get to play on the same field together, to try and do something the the best of their ability – whatever level the game is – and very often do cool things. A team scoring a beautiful team goal is something that is always awesome even if it’s not my team doing it. I still get sad when my team loses. But what is different is I acknowledge it, pray for the strength to lay this down at the feet of Jesus. He refills my heart with His hope, and peace, to continue sharing the things that uplift others around me. Kindness, love, a consoling word or two if it seems it would be helpful.
We all need our hope resurrected by Jesus at some point, and He always delivers.
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What a beautiful example of how He is involved in absolutely everything that is important to us, thank you Hamish! He really does meet us exactly where we are at, with everything that affects, and lifts us up!
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