How to Overcome Hope Deferred and Disappointments

Are you at the end of your rope? You aren’t alone if you are dealing with discouragement, disappointment, and hope deferred. This is a battle we all face at one time or another. The key is knowing how to grasp the promises of God when you are depleted, doubtful, and depressed. 

Join Rabbi Curt Landry for this practical and encouraging message as he answers some of his listeners’ most common questions about overcoming hope deferred and disappointment, such as…

• When is hope deferred likely to creep in?
• How do I grasp onto the promises of God when I’m at the end of my rope?
• What does it look like when I’m walking in alignment with a godly desire?
• How do I remember the promises and words of God?

You won’t want to miss this encouraging podcast. Hold on to the promises of God, and don’t grow weary because your breakthrough is coming!

Transcription from Podcast (Revised for Readability)

Rabbi Curt Landry here with Ancient Principles, Kingdom Authority.

Introduction

The whole concept of this podcast and teaching is to, step by step, encourage you that there’s a mystery inside the Bible. And that mystery is related to understanding the roots of the faith. When you understand the roots of your faith, you’ll be more effective and have supernatural results of the faith today. 

And that’s a proven principle. It’s not a wish or a hope. It’s a fact.

As you invest in yourself by transforming your mind into your real identity in Yeshua as Messiah, you’ll come to see that it is a process. Your identity starts to melt into the pages of the Bible after some time of being in the Word (or the Bible begins to shape your identity).

For example, let’s say you’re reading about Joseph and Egypt and the situation with his brothers. I can

relate to what he’s going through and apply it to my life today. And that’s the whole reason for us in our ministry. It will be that bridge to unpack ancient principles to increase your today-kingdom authority.

How Hope Deferred and Disappointments Impact Our Faith Journey

As part of this learning process, when you first start down this path, hope deferred and disappointments can create apathy in the life of a Believer. It can happen quickly, but it’s also a long play. When you decide to think of yourself through a spiritual/Biblical lens compared to a humanistic/worldly lens, there will be challenges when moving from flesh thinking to spiritual thinking. As Believers, we battle against that discouragement. 

I want to encourage you to…

• Spend time in teaching like this
• Get into fellowship
• Find people
• Livestream with us
• Chat with us

It’s amazing how many Curt Landry Ministry partners actually become social media friends. We all have different experiences but the same experience. And it’s really good to encourage others when you are at one stage, and they are at another. Because when discouragement comes, you can start to isolate yourself. You think something is wrong with you or you did something wrong. It’s easy to personalize it. 

Don’t allow discouragement to take over because you are going to make it. You have to be disciplined enough to stay after it.

When You’re at the End of Your Rope

So, how do you deal with the discouragement when you feel like all hope has been lost, and you cry out from your heart to the Lord? When you’re at that end of the rope, what do I do? 

Grasp the Baton of Promise

There’s a message I preach about grasping the baton. The baton is the goal or the promise. 

Think of it this way; I’m crawling, walking, and running toward the promise. I think I’m almost there. I am close, and then disappointment and discouragement come because I run out of steam. 

There’s a reason why the Lord allows that fatigue. He’s not causing it. But when we reach the end of our strength and talents, and ability, there’s a place where we stretch out our arms, and the promise is given to us. 

We might think, “I can’t believe I’m almost there, and I’ve run out of gas. I can’t believe my enthusiasm, my strength, my motivation… it’s gone. I’m here, and I just can’t even pick up my own hand and grab the promise.” 

But what happens is when it’s time, and I’ve given up, but I don’t quit, which means I’ve given up on my own mental hopes, dreams, and desires, my hope deferred makes the heart grow sick, but when the desire comes, it’s the tree of life. 

That tree of life is when the spiritual hand of God comes down on my hand, and when I don’t have strength, it picks my hand up and then gives me the result, gives me the baton. And I can tell you that’s exactly how it works. But someone needs to tell you so you know what is coming. 

Hope Deferred and Discouragement Creeps in When… 

When you’re at that stage where you’ve run out of gas, you’re weary and questioning whether you’re going to finish and finish well, hope deferred can creep in. 

Hope deferred creeps in when there is a mental shift in your mind, and it goes into your soul, which is your emotions. 

It comes when you start questioning what God asked you to do. And why would you start questioning? 

• The reason you start questioning what God is asking you to do is because it’s either not manifesting enough evidence that it was really Him or it’s going too slowly. 
• Or you’re striving and trying to do it too quickly, and you actually need to slow down to get more done.

Discouragement can creep in when you start processing what God said and judging it off visual results. 

• So, it becomes about what you see, hear, and feel. 

You allow your soul, which is your mind, will, and emotions, to start to basically prophesy or it starts to have a voice. It starts speaking to your mind, “You know what, that really wasn’t God.” If you go back, the classic case of this is Satan in the Garden with Eve. “Well, God didn’t really mean that you shouldn’t eat that apple.”

Start Journaling

Start journaling all the words that God has spoken to you. So when you start questioning, take the things in your journal and then start speaking them out in prayer and speaking them out in the Courts of Heaven and put God into remembrance of His Word. It’s not that God’s forgotten, but it reminds you and your soul of what God said. 

So, hope deferred and disappointment creeps in when there’s a lack of results and unmet or unrealistic expectations and a lack of knowledge. In other words, walking in disobedience and misalignment out of God’s timing.”

I want to tell you what I wish someone had told me. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel. I want to share what I have learned. 

So let’s look at James 4:3: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

• When you ask the Lord to bless you, let’s use finances as an example. When you ask the Lord to bless your finances, the Lord wants you to use your finances for your calling and His pleasure, not yours.

Now, I’m not saying that the Lord doesn’t want you to have nice things, nice food, nice comforts. That’s not what I’m saying. Actually, if you want more pleasure and more things, then God rewards obedience because obedience is better than sacrifice. The just live by faith. 

But what James, the half-brother of Jesus, was saying is that when we ask and do not receive it, it is because God knows our hearts’ intent.

He wants us to ask for…

• Authority
• Favor 
• Financial blessing

…with the intent to invest it in His purpose and in the call in our lives. So then, when we ask and do not receive, it is because we haven’t weighed out the intents of the heart.

• And that’s why you go into the Psalms and pray, “Search me and know me, Lord, for I desire truth in my inward parts.” 

• And you look at Hebrews 4:12, “That the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword dividing even to sunder, the separation of bone and mar and marrow.” 

That’s why it’s so critical to write down what God has asked you to do. Journal it and pray it out to stop this very problem of hope deferred and disappointment. 

It is very discouraging when you aren’t in obedience or alignment, or you are out of God’s timing. Being out of alignment and having a hidden sin is very discouraging. This is for most people; this is why we need accountability partners, leadership, and a covering, and it needs to be relational.  

You need somebody that can very lovingly say, “Are you hearing what you’re saying? Or why did you make this choice?” And then try to pull out some of those inner issues that cause negative thoughts, habits, choices, and patterns.

What Does It Look Like When Godly Desires Are Fulfilled?

You’ve asked, “What does it look like when a true godly desire is fulfilled?” It’s not even so much the result as it is an inner knowing in your spirit. I know for myself, and I know many other diligent, hardcore disciples, people who are walking in the spirit, you usually know something’s going down. 

When something good happens, I usually know about 12-24 hours in advance, and I’ll start feeling really good about it. I know that the result we were looking for will be spiritually birthed. Or that door that we’ve been waiting to open is actually going to open. I’ve just recently had something like that happen.

Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desires comes, it is the tree of life.” When the Lord is moving with things He wants to reveal to you, He wants you to be on the inside track of what He is doing. 

So what does it mean when the desire comes, it’s the tree of life? If you look at Proverbs 13:11, it says, “Wealth gained by dishonesty will be diminished, but when it’s gathered by labor, it will increase.” Then it says, “Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick, but when the desire comes, it’s the tree of life.”

This is an ancient principle and Kingdom authority. We can sum it up with this; impatience can cause discouragement. Because with pride comes nothing but strife. So when we demand that something mature or deliver or bring the result that we want in our timeframe, otherwise we will elect to back off, it will not prosper. It’s as if we say, “Well, guess what? It didn’t happen in my mental timeline, goals, or aspirations, so I’m just going not to work as hard. I’m going to back off.” And then, if we do that with dishonest gain or strife, it will not prosper.

But the hope deferred is in the heart. If your heart’s sick, you need to heal it by asking the Lord, “What is it in me causing this impatience or distraction?” 

So when the scripture says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it’s the tree of life.“ If you can imagine this, your hope is in the tree of life. So imagine an olive tree, okay? You’ve got the trunk, and under the ground, there’s this tremendous root system. And as long as the branch of your life is grafted into this tree, then you’re connected to the trunk. You’re connected to the roots.

But when the heart goes sick through doubt and unbelief, we detach from the tree, and the heart starts to wilt because there’s no sap that’s running.

Sometimes human anticipation, goals, and expectations aren’t as patient as God’s. And it makes you feel detached from the tree and like you’re going to wither and die. But if you’ll not quit on God and you’ll not quit on believing, and you’ll decree it, pray it and believe it, even though you see no sign of it, and remember that you are grafted in, and it’s the tree of life, you will receive the nourishment you need. You will receive nourishment from the root system, the lump, which is holy. And there’s a time of refreshing that comes. Times of revival and renewal come. But before those things happen, there’s usually a drought, a desert, a wilderness, or a dry time.

So the ancient principle about Kingdom authority here is to be patient. 

• Don’t lose hope. 
• Quote God’s Word. 
• Stay in fellowship. 

Stay with us for Ancient Principles, Kingdom Authority. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I’ll look forward to seeing you next time. 

Bio

Curt Landry, founder of Curt Landry Ministries, and his wife, Christie, travel extensively, preaching and teaching about the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Together, their passion is to empower families to live and leave Kingdom legacies and understand their own personal heritage.