Last week we began a study of this short proverb:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”
Proverbs 13: 12
We began our study by looking at the exposition on this passage in the Interpreter’s Bible, written by Rolland Schloerb in the early part of the twentieth century. Mr. Schloerb notes that unanswered hope is not such a terrible thing. In fact, unfulfilled hopes, he says, “make life interesting.” He adds that hopes or desires fulfilled are often disappointments. We find that what we had hoped for really is not particularly great or we find ourselves satiated and with a diminished drive for living life.
So, to put the matter in the starkest terms, the Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick and hope fulfilled is a tree of life, while our fair interpreter says that hope deferred is a tree of life and hope fulfilled makes the heart sick.
What we find is that Mr. Schloerb has not really attempted to expose the meaning of the scripture at all. Rather, he has chosen to contradict it openly and admittedly in both its declarations. He dodges his one task.
While we may have some sympathy for Schloerb here and even believe that there is wisdom in all he says, we are still left with the undeniable contradiction between the passage he is supposed to be interpreting or exposing and his own conclusions. There are at least two questions that must raise themselves when we look at this paradox:
- Why did such a learned and well-meaning man write as he did; and
- Why did the editors allow this bit to withstand review and include it in this seminal publication?
- A third question might also be in order: Why, when believers read this segment of Schloerb’s work, is there no immediate rejection of it or at least dissatisfaction?
In last week’s session, we found that many of us were quite willing to go along with Schloerb. We spoke of many good things that might result from our hope being deferred and we might have even mentioned some instances where a hope satisfied led to disappointment or other regrettable consequences.
In a recent interview the CEO of a major corporation said that he wished for suffering and disappointment for all those who wish to succeed. That’s how you learn, that’s how character is formed.
There is a simple and obvious answer to all three of those questions, but if we are to really wrestle with the text, if we are to look at the scriptures as authoritative and a means for our own education and formation:
II Timothy 3: 16 English Standard Version
All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
must not be content with the answer that immediately suggests itself and force ourselves to come to terms with the meaning of the text itself and think deeply about why we are so willing to avoid or dismiss that direct message.
The simple answer is this: We see, or at least remember more of unfulfilled hopes in these lives we lead than fulfillment. The New Testament, not to mention all of history, is full of writing about the suffering of the Christian, indeed, the suffering of humanity.
We find substantial support for the ideas presented by Schloerb here in the New Testament:
The Message Romans 8: 24-27
These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
Romans 5:3-5
English Standard Version
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Hebrews 11
13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. 14 For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. 15 If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.
And we must remember that Schloerb was a pastor. How much more would he have been familiar with dashed and disappointed hopes and desires than fulfillment. How much time would he have spent in hospitals and by deathbeds compared to weddings and graduations? How much more would he have appreciated that those who he shepherded needed solace in loss and disappointment rather than aid in celebrating desire fulfilled.
And yet…and yet. We are still faced with this little verse that is unyielding and contrary and stubborn in its directness. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life.
Why are we so willing to hear the opposite case?
- Have we ignored or thought too little of the fulfillments we have seen in our own lives?
- Is our life so unfocused and undisciplined that we really have no hopes? Or cannot identify them?
- Are we unwilling, for some reason or another, to admit to ourselves what our hopes are?
- Might this unwillingness stem from our reluctance to trust God?
- Might this be because we are aware of our own laziness and lack of discipline necessary to achieve fulfillment?
- Have we given up on our lives? Yes, we admit and cling to the ultimate hope we have in heaven, but have we, perhaps in the face of disappointment after disappointment, decided to give up on the here and now? Have we decided that this abundant life that our Lord promised has little or nothing to do with daily life here on earth? Here we are to be content with little, with taking a back seat, with being overlooked and overruled. Have we forgotten how to dream?
A desire fulfilled is a tree of life. “Tree of life” That is a metaphor bursting with meaning, exploding with suggestion and overtones. What does it mean? We discussed this to some extent last week. We see the phrase written elsewhere in the Bible. In Genesis, the tree of life is on the garden of Eden and after mankind has fallen, God banishes them from the garden to prevent them from eating from the tree of life and living forever. (Gen 3: 22)
In the book of Revelation, we see the tree of life as a symbol of abundance, unending sustenance, provision, and healing. (Rev. 22: 2)
Thus, the tree of life is a giver of something above and beyond the mortal. It is a giver of that kind of life – zoe – of which our Lord spoke when he promised “abundant life.” (John 10: 10) The tree of life sustains life not only here and now, but for eternity.
Thus, according to the proverb, a desire fulfilled does not lead a person to satiety and disappointment. It is, rather, a giver of new life, an inspiration. A desire fulfilled strengthens and sustains our faith, our hope, our willingness to engage ourselves in the battles before us.
To take in and understand the meaning of this proverb, let’s do a little thought experiment. Let’s imagine the fulfillment of a great longing. Let’s be concrete and specific in our imagining. We won’t settle for some abstract notion of a longing fulfilled in theory. We want to imagine the real fulfillment of a real longing. These things can be very personal, and we may want to keep them private, so we won’t demand that anyone share.
You and I believe that “every good and perfect gift cometh from above, it comes down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (James 1: 17) So, in our vocabulary, what we are talking about is a blessing. There are different kinds. God may bless us in a way we have not anticipated or desired. It may be a complete surprise. God may bless us in a way that we do not immediately recognize as a blessing. We see its value only in retrospect. (Solzhenitsyn “Thank God for the Gulag.”) A third kind of blessing is one that we have specifically anticipated. Something that we have wanted to happen. We may have been praying for it, long and hard. And now it comes to us. Here it is, that “longing fulfilled.”
How do we imagine that this will be a tree of life?
At last, and ultimately, our hope is in Christ. He is the desire of nations.
Christ The Apple Tree
The tree of life my soul hath seen
Laden with fruit, and always green:
The trees of nature fruitless be
Compared with Christ the apple tree
His beauty doth all things excel:
By faith I know, but ne’er can tell
The glory which I now can see
In Jesus Christ the apple tree
For happiness I long have sought
And pleasure dearly I have bought:
I missed of all; but now I see
‘Tis found in Christ the apple tree
I’m weary with my former toil
Here I will sit and rest awhile: Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden
Under the shadow I will be
Of Jesus Christ the apple tree
This fruit doth make my soul to thrive
It keeps my dying faith alive;
Which makes my soul in haste to be
With Jesus Christ the apple tree
friends in Christ 