From Sarai to Sarah

Hope deferred makes the heart sick... -Proverbs 13:12 (AMP)

Have you ever felt like you were on a roller coaster ride of emotions?  At times I have been on that roller coaster going from hopeful to hopelessness and back again.  I have been thinking a lot lately about hope deferred and how it makes the heart sick.
 
I think that the life of Sarai turned to Sarah is a perfect example of hope deferred, or delayed.
 
Sarai waited for over a decade for God to give her the son that He had promised to her.  She waited and waited for her promise to be fulfilled yet remained barren.  Talk about hope deferred, waiting each month for ten years only to find out that the time was not yet.

Sarai's hope deferred was so great that she began to blame God and decided to take matters into her own hands.  She told her husband to sleep with her maid so that the maid could act as a surrogate mother.  Oh the joy that must have come at the birth of that child...but it did not last long.  Because that was not the plan that God had from the beginning, the joy soon turned to strife as the women could not get along.
 
Thankfully we serve a God who sees us not with the imperfections that we have, but as who He has destined us to become.  He saw Sarai not as "Sarai - noble woman" but as "Sarah - princess".  Her Father the King of Kings returned to her and promised once again that she would bear Abraham's child.  Sarah laughed at that for she knew that the time for her to bear children had long passed...but God's plan was still valid.
 
Look at the second half of the proverb that I started with.
 
Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.
-Proverbs 13:12 (AMP)
 
God has placed desires in each of our hearts, but how do we open the door for Him to fulfill that desire?  We open the door by faith.
 
God says that Faith is:

The assurance, confirmation, and the title deed of the things we hope for.
The proof of things we do not see.
The conviction of their reality.
It perceives as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.
-Hebrews 11:1 (AMP)

One thing that we know to be true is that God will never leave us or forsake us. (Hebrew 13:5) God will always be there for us especially in the middle of our worst trials. Hope displaced can crush us if we expect God to stop the trial immediately and fix the situation. Our hearts can leap for joy as we see a small crack in the clouds above, then sink to our stomachs as darker clouds move in. If we expected God to end the storm, He appears to have failed us. If we expect God to remain with us in the storm, He has kept His promise to never leave us.

I have told you these things so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.
John 16:33
 
Place your hope in God today and remember His promise to never leave us.