What does it mean that hope deferred makes the heart sick (Proverbs 13:12)?

Next we are told of the blight created by disappointment, and the cheer given by receiving what the heart sought. "Hope deferred makes the heart sick; but [when] desire comes, it is a tree of life." Some may have proved both experiences, and know how true it is. But we do well in the things of this life to judge our thoughts and desires before God by His Word, and ever to say in truth, "Thy will be done."

As hope deferred makes the heart sick, so the fruition of what is desired is pleasant, but not unless the desire be governed by the fear of God. Without His will, not anything is wise, good, or sweet. Hence we read what follows.

“Hope deferred,” we read, “maketh the heart sick,” and there is more than the possibility of that sickness so depressing the spirit that hands begin to hang down, and knees to become feeble.

"Hope deferred," we read, "makes the heart sick," and there is more than the possibility of that sickness so depressing the spirit that hands begin to hang down, and knees to become feeble.

Man’s time is always ready, as our Lord has told us. He is an impatient creature, and a deferred hope makes his heart sick. It is only faith that can lift him above his natural restlessness. If we had more confidence in the wisdom and love of God we would be a great deal more restful. The saints of past dispensations saw in the vision of faith the promised blessings and were persuaded of them and embraced them, and confessed that they were pilgrims and strangers on the earth, and though they died not having received them, their confidence in God remained unshaken.

Much has transpired between the conception of these marvellous mysteries and the completion of them—the creation, the history of this earth previous to its being made a dwelling-place for man, and its history subsequent to that six days’ work—but God is not like man: He can wait upon the accomplishment of the work in which His whole heart and mind are engaged, and there is nothing that can retard or hasten His steps upon the path He has chosen, and by which lies the complete success of all that He has set Himself to do. Every thought of His heart shall yet be established. The thing we have long expected—and perhaps with a measure of impatience looked for—has not yet arrived, and the tendency of hope deferred is to make the heart sick; but our desire shall come, and when it does come we shall find it “a tree of life” (Prov. 13:12). God is more interested in the completion of the things purposed in His love than we are. But every step of His journey toward the end before Him is taken with all the deliberation of infinite wisdom and in the power that cannot fail regarding the final issue.

I therefore judge that our immediate hope, that of meeting the Lord in the air, does not necessarily wait for anything. His coming to the earth, I surely know, must wait for much. But that is not our first prospect. I do not say when the rapture will be. It may be more distant than our hope would have it, and hope deferred should make the heart sick. But the delay is not for the purpose of sickening the hearts of saints, but for saving the souls of sinners. "The longsuffering of God is salvation." We should remember that every moment of the delay, be it long or short. And our patience should be unmurmuring, as God's patience is saving and gracious. But I do not judge that the apostles teach us that there is a necessity for some events taking place before that patience ends in the rapture of the saints. There will be strange and awful events, trials and distress of nations such as never have been. And how soon we know not.

"Hope deferred makes the heart sick" (v. 12). How many believers have entertained the hope that the Lord would come before now! If their hearts are sick, they need only to confide in the perfect wisdom of God, to have their hopes conformed to His will. "But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life." This will indeed be true of the Lord's coming, though it cannot be counted on if our desires are for vain things.

Now the difficulty of the man of God after the fall of Babylon seems to have been to reconcile the prophecy of Jeremiah with the tenor of the various visions. Jeremiah had foretold the restoration of God's favour to the people of Judah on the expiration of the seventy years allotted to the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar. Now (Dan. 9) Babylon had fallen, and the supremacy had been assumed by the second world-empire—that of the Medes and Persians. Still Jerusalem was not restored, and, moreover, the second of Daniel's visions (7), that of the ram and the he-goat, showed that further desolations would come upon that city under the kingdom that would follow Persia, viz., Greece. Hope deferred makes the heart sick, and the effect of this prospect of prolonged oppression was to cast Daniel into the depths of despondency (Dan. 8:27). But he was not altogether without resource, for he gave himself to the word of God and to prayer.

There are many true and earnest souls at the present time sorely perplexed and tried because of the absence in them of those qualities which they really long for, as suitable to Christ dwelling in the heart by faith. In proportion to their reality, and uprightness of conscience, is their sorrow and perplexity. They have tasted what earth and the things around cannot impart to them, yet it has been but a taste; the longings and yearnings are there unsatisfied, and hope deferred maketh the heart sick. They see a brightness which they do not possess, a portion which is not theirs. They are like Mary at the tomb; affection unmet is in them; this world is but a grave to them at best; they can tell you with broken heart and weeping eyes, "I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not;" and often they say, "Oh, that I knew where I could find him!"