Hope Deferred | Pregnant with Zion
by
Donna Diorio
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but
when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. Proverbs 13:12
When
we live for a long time with our hopes deferred (postponed, delayed or held to
a future pointed date) in time our lives can become conditioned to low or no
expectation. Instead we begin to face our days waiting for the other shoe to
drop, because that is what "heart sick" means.
Before anyone gets on their faith high
horse, some of you have not lived in a situation where your hopes were
postponed, delayed or held to an appointed future date. You just haven't. We
ALL have our trials, but some of you have not endured long standing "deferred
hope" that drags on and on with a deferred hope that is big enough even in
a person of faith, to establish a "heart sickness" like Proverbs
13:12 is talking about. Be glad you have not, but don't gloat thinking your
faith is superior — just stronger and better, because it just hasn’t been
equally tested.
In Revelation 12 the apostle John sees a
dragon, a serpent that releases a “flood” like a “river” to “sweep away "a
woman clothed in the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve
stars on her head. She was pregnant and crying out in the pain and agony of
giving birth."
Everyone pretty much realizes by now that
the flood of water is a flood of words - evil words, words meant to tear down,
steal from or destroy the target of the serpent’s words. A flood - a
relentless, powerful torrent sweeping away everything in its path, carrying
everything off to utter destruction. It sounds like the last 2,000 years of
Jewish history to me.
Some have interpreted the woman in
Revelation 12 as being the Church because she is clothed in the sun; others
believe the woman represents Israel, the Jewish people because she is wearing a
crown of twelve stars representing the 12 tribes. I believe the woman is both: the One New Man
in Messiah made up of a Church that is in one-unity with the body of MESSIANIC
BELIEVERS. The church is the mid-wife interceding
for Israel's salvation and actively helping their Israeli MESSIANIC brethren to
bring salvation to birth in Israel.
Israel is pregnant with God's
salvation. It is going to take the midwife of the Church helping the pregnant
Israeli believers in Israel to bring forth this only awaited salvation of
"all Israel," to bring forth Zion. It is God's end game as the apostle Paul said
in Ephesians 2, to make of two (Jewish and Gentiles BELIEVERS) one new man in
Him, Messiah, Jesus/Yeshua. This is Zion
in the making.
But the dragon, the serpent, has been
dragging on and on what is hoped for : Zion.
So the Church gets the message to love Israel, but continues to fail to
fulfill GOD's DESIRE to fully unite with the Israeli MESSIANIC body, so this pregnancy
can come to full term, and all Israel be birthed into the kingdom of Messiah.
Even many Messianic Jews have such
"hope deferred" over the Church failing to see what God wants from us
that they have become heart sick. The expectation of change, where the church
isn't focused on the wrong things, but on the spiritual pregnancy of Israel,
they have almost – not quite — lost hope about their Christian family. God will
not let them lose hope entirely because He will revive hope for His desire will
be fulfilled at the appointed time. We sure seem to be in the contractions
already.
When the spiritual birth comes in Israel it
will be a "tree of life" not only to those whose hopes have been so
deferred for so long, or to the newly saved, but it will be a tree of life to
peoples in all the nations. When Israel comes at long last to the spiritual
birthing that God has held back to these days in front of us - the appointed
time – the nations will see it and rejoice that in their own nations too they
are seeing so great a salvation.
I relate these things on a personal level
and also on the level of being an advocate for the Israeli Messianic community.
I believe God has shown me that He has a certain end game for Israel where
Israel comes to faith by Messiah Yeshua, and He has made me understand through
the things I have experienced in life, many aspects of what Israel has gone
through to get to this very pregnant stage of His plan.
Over the past couple of years, if there is anything that God has been
working on me about, it is to break me from my heart sickness of low to no
expectation because of hope deferred.
Repeatedly that has been His message to me as I experienced perils and
unexpected rescues. He has used the repetition to speak to my hope-deferred-heart,
because trust requires repetition. He
has been renewing my hope so I could exercise my faith, that it is indeed
as He promised: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to
prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will
call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you." Jeremiah
29:11-12
I say to the Messianic Jews of Israel who
have experienced the heart sickness of hope deferred in seeing the Church truly
come alongside you for your labors in God’s harvest field of Israel: Look up for
Israel's redemption draws near: "For
the vision awaits an APPOINTED time; it testifies of the end and does not lie.
Though it lingers, wait for it, since it will surely come and will not
delay." Habakkuk 2:3
We are very close.
