Hi, I'm Susie Larson.

Here's the podcast from Susie Larson Live.

Enjoy the conversation.

Welcome to Susie Larson Live.

Always so honored to get to spend this time with you.

I look forward to bringing you conversations every single day that hopefully inspire you in your faith walk,

that deepen your understanding of God's Word, and that heightens your awareness of his very real presence in your life.

Well, last month when we had our good friend, Dr. Lee Warren on the show, we talked about what do you do with fear, like practical,

practical ways to deal with the kinds of fears that you face. Well, today, we're going to talk about

how to keep hope alive. And maybe you've heard me share this story before, but it bears repeating

for today's show.

When I was going through one of my really tough health stretches, I quoted the Bible back to God.

You want to make sure you know what you're talking about when you do that.

Just note to self.

But I told them, I'm heart sick because my hope has been deferred for so long.

And I was referring that verse in Proverbs that says, hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a promise fulfilled is a tree of life. Immediately, I felt conviction from the Holy Spirit,

and I felt the Father's discipline lovingly, but he said, look it up. And I knew I was in trouble.

So I looked it up, and guess what? The word hope here, deferred, I mean, the word deferred in this

passage, hope deferred. The word deferred is a verb. It's an action word. So it means to put off

hope, kind of like to kick the can down the field, to postpone, to defer a payment. Like,

let's say you want to postpone your loan payments. You defer them to a later date. You're postponing paying,

right? Well, to postpone hope, then, is to make your heart sick, which means your heart can't live

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