One of the most difficult parts of this stay-in-place COVID-19 isolation order isn’t the staying home part, it’s the uncertainty of when this ban will be lifted. The President has recommended that it now go through the end of April. And I guess the corresponding worry is just who will decide it’s over and what will be the determining guidelines.
So, we wait, and we wait some more, and we do the best we can in the meantime.
We are living what Solomon described in Proverbs 13:12a: “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.”
I have read that proverb many times, but this morning my attention was drawn to that word, “deferred.” Deferred means to put off to a later time, it doesn’t mean destroyed. Solomon recognized that as he finished the proverb with “but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Soon the ban to gather will be lifted and that deferred hope will become a fulfilled longing and a tree of life to us.
In the meantime, there is a hope that is not deferred. David, Solomon’s dad, posed the question, “But now, Lord, what do I look for?” and then he gave the answer, “My hope is in you.” [Ps 39:7]
Our hope to gather may be deferred, but our hope in God is with us every moment of every day. We know His promises. We know He keeps His promises. We know that He is Almighty God and our Rock that is above all Rocks!
That is our moment-by-moment hope. “Jesus, my hope is in You.” Amen