“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Proverbs 13:12 NRSVue
Reflection:
We love Proverbs. They are practical, and we view them as nuggets of wisdom that can improve our lives. Plus, there are 31 of them, which divide perfectly for our calendar, making reading a Proverb a day a very popular daily devotional.
The Proverbs are also pithy, with the shortest chapter containing 18 verses; every day, we can find a verse that we can interpret as a promise for our lives. Each morning, our Proverbs devotional can tell us that God has something for us that we want. That is the kind of religion that many of us want.
The problem is that while the Proverbs are sayings of wisdom, they are not actually promises. They are wise principles. Too many Christians, perhaps especially in the United States, develop a distorted faith because they claim the wisdom of the Proverbs as promises for their lives.
The way we treat the Proverbs can make this verse a self-fulfilling prophecy, or at least a self-fulfilling proverb.
Viewing every proverb as an explicit promise gives us the false hope that we can control life as if by Divine recipe. I know a pastor who lamented that he did “everything right” with his child, yet the ‘promise’ of Proverbs 22:6 was broken as his adult child left the faith.
Ironically, misunderstanding the proverbs can create a false hope that, when unfulfilled or deferred, makes our hearts sick.
This verse might be a good example to explore how the Proverbs work. It is saying something that we all know, confirming that when we have a hope that does not materialize, it hurts, but when it does happen, we feel like we have been given life. The Proverbs, however, often require a bit more out of us.
Maybe the obvious truth that we are happy when we get what we want and unhappy when we do not is not really the point. Perhaps it is a reminder that our happiness should not hinge solely on whether or not we get our way.
A Quote to Consider:
“The playful and the prayerful are not opposites.”
-Mark Burrows
We tend to be very serious when it comes to church.
As a child, I spent a lot of time at Wednesday night prayer meetings listening to the older women in the church praying their long, and to me, boring prayers. After my mother and the other women were done praying–sometimes I prayed a short prayer, but it was a lot of pressure– I was allowed to go out and play. For me, the prayerful and the playful could not happen at the same time or even in the same space.
That was a weakness in the way I was raised.
The best definition I have ever seen for prayer is found in the Book of Common Prayer, which defines prayer as “responding to God, by thought and by deeds, with or without words.”
God created a joyous world full of laughter and fun. He created humor and bright colors, and minds that could design playgrounds and little children’s legs to carry them through the playgrounds.
What I did not know when I was a child was that my prayer time was after I left the prayer meeting, when I responded in pure joy to God’s gifts as I ran and played.
I was not responding to God in the prayer meeting. Honestly, in my immaturity, I could barely perceive Him in my boredom. I wish I knew then that I was praying on the swings and the slide. I wish it were easier for me to remember as an adult that I can, and often do, respond to God in my moments of joy just as much, if not more, than in the solemn moments I call prayer.
Prayer:
Dear Father,
God of joy and wisdom, help us hold hope with open hands. Teach us to trust not in promises we write for ourselves, but in Your presence in both our longing and our delight. Let our laughter and our waiting both be prayers to You.
Amen.
Image: Pamela Reynoso
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