This week at ICCL we’ll continue in the Proverbs. These pity sayings that pack a powerful punch are preciously practical! Take for instance the following one found in one of the chapters we’ll look at this Sunday:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life” (13:12).
Hope is a powerful emotion. When it is present, it can bring about perseverance in the toughest circumstances. When hopes are dashed, mustering up the wherewithal to press on can become a losing battle. But when is hope deferred, the effect is much like that of a chronic illness that keeps one from functioning normally. The remedy according to this proverb is a hope fulfilled. That’s where true life is found and the reference to a tree of life is no little allusion. It points to the tree of which our first parents where deprived because of their sin. True fulfillment has alluded mankind until God provided the remedy with another type of tree that took the form of the cross. Laying our sins down before that tree in confession and repentance restores the hope of eating once again from the tree of life “for in this hope we were saved”.
I close inviting you to rejoice in that hope together this Sunday the 29th at 16h30 for our next ICCL worship and communion service in Caluire (6 rue Albert Thomas, 69300).
With living hope,
Mike DiGena
Pastor ICCL
