What to Do When You're Afraid to Hope

After enough letdowns, you decide it's safer to expect nothing. If you don't get your hopes up, they can't come crashing down. You watched a prayer go unanswered. You trusted someone and they let you down. So now you hold everything at a careful distance, bracing for the next disappointment before it comes. Hope starts to feel like a setup.This episode opens with Kashia and Riley Palmer, who longed to be parents for years. After fertility treatments failed, they turned to adoption, and a call came about twin baby boys. They raised 45,000 dollars in two days and flew to meet their sons, only to have a nurse meet them at the hospital door. The birth mother had changed her mind, and they flew home with empty arms and a fear a lot of us know: the fear of ever letting yourself hope again.Solomon named this ache 3,000 years ago. Proverbs 13:12 says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is a tree of life." Solomon is naming something true. When you want something and the waiting stretches on, it wears on you and can leave a bruise that lasts for years. God's Word doesn't pretend that away. But look at the second half of the verse. A dream fulfilled is a tree of life, the kind that grows and shelters. The problem was never hope itself. The problem is where we aim it.When you pin all your hope on one outcome, one answer arriving by a certain date, you're betting your heart on something that might not come. God is asking you to hope in Him, not just in the thing you want from Him. Hoping in an outcome is fragile, because outcomes can fall through. Hoping in God is sure, because He doesn't. He may not give you the exact thing on your timeline, but He has promised never to leave you empty.That is the hope the Palmers finally found. Months later another call came, this time a baby girl. Their hands were up, and they knew they could not guarantee the outcome. That part belonged to God. Scared and hoping anyway, they flew to meet their daughter, and the birth mother looked at them and said, "You're here. You're really here." They came home a family. They didn't hope less the second time. They hoped scared, with their hope resting where it couldn't be crushed.BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:Why disappointment makes so many people quietly stop letting themselves hopeWhat Proverbs 13:12 says about the toll of hope deferred and the life a fulfilled hope bringsHow to keep hoping by aiming your hope at God instead of a single outcomeHope deferred makes the heart sick, but hope aimed at God won't leave you empty. Keep hoping, and aim it at Him.Share This Episode:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/300Need Prayer? Leave me a voicemail:https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/voicemailWant to keep these devotions coming? Please consider supporting this podcast.https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/support/Rate and Reviewhttps://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/reviews/new/Connect with BartFacebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/dailydevotionsforbusylivesWebsite: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.comFeeling spiritually drained? Start here. Download your free copy of my eBook Making Time for Jesus here: https://www.dailydevotionsforbusylives.com/subscribe.