How long, Lord?

Date: 12/5/2025

Dear friends, 

I just wanted to take this moment to remind you of a Biblical truth that hit me between the eyes again this week. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” 

Hope deferred can also be translated as expectation postponed. In this season of my life where Renée and I are constantly dealing with our beautiful children (amongst other things), our expectations are constantly being postponed. From small things like, perhaps we can all go jogging together after the nap (and then the nap doesn’t happen and everyone is a melting mess 2 hours before bath time), to big things like, I stepped out in faith and prayed for that blind guy outside the grocery store and nothing happened… 

Do you remember the Israelites, having just walked through on dry land through the Red Sea, complaining about the lack of water after three days without it? To be honest, I always thought the Israelites were a special group of people to see God move so mightily and yet still completely miss the plot line. Nowadays, I see myself far more often in their shoes. I actually applaud the fact that they made it three days in the wilderness without water… My kids rarely leave the house without theirs - we would have been stuffed after three hours of those flasks running out. 

Still, three days without water? That IS disappointing if you’ve just been miraculously freed from slavery, saw ten very intense signs, and then walked out of oppression whilst your oppressors were stuffing their gold into your pockets. Their hopes were deferred. Big time. And their hearts became sick. The Bible says they, “grumbled against Moses…”We see David, yes the famous shepherd, king, poet, worshipper, experience the same disappointment in the Lord in Psalm 13. Please go read it. Can you believe the opening line? “How long, Lord? Will You forget me forever?” That’s disappointment. And yet, David does not allow his disappointment to define his relationship with God. No, he recounts God‘s faithfulness, prophecies that he will rejoice and determines that he will sing in this trying moment because God has dealt “bountifully” with him. Denial? I don’t think so. He recalls God’s faithfulness, the trees of life where desires were fulfilled, he reminds himself of who God is and who he knows God to be. See, in the valley shadows can cast funny images on the ground that things may appear not as they are. 

Dear friend, have the courage to pour your heart out to God. To ask the difficult questions, to vulnerably petition for the answers. So that the stinger of disappointment may be removed and your heart’s health be whole. 

Unfortunately there is no verse that guarantees or exempts us from disappointment. Yet, even Jesus went through this same test. In John 12:27, I believe Jesus thinks out loud to allow us to glean some insight into the renewed mind of Christ. 

“Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour?’ But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.”

I believe these moments of deferred hope, postponed expectation or simple disappointment are opportunities for us to glorify the Father, for we have come to this hour for this purpose - to go through and glorify Him. This is not easy, for Jesus it meant willingly allowing Himself to be scourged, mocked, and hung on a cross. It is incredibly costly. But in John 12:28 we see Heaven’s response on this reaction to disappointment, distress and trouble: “Then a voice came from heaven: “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” GOD SPEAKS! Heaven takes note. Wow. 

Friend, disappointment is so difficult. We have expectations for every minute of every day, and they are often not met in the way we thought they would be. Carry those moments to Him, submit, yield and surrender them to the One who died for them. 

I believe the Lord is faithful to answer the prayer, “Lord, where is my hope deferred?” And He is swift, not to give us that desire, but to walk with us through the disappointment. I don’t think the Holy Spirit was so often called the Comforter by Jesus by accident. Not the “answerer”, but Comforter. Certainty isn’t the hallmark of faith, trust is. 

May God bless you, and keep you. 

Love and Light, 

Willem and Renée