The word deferred means “to delay or to remove.” When one loses hope, they
have lost one of the three greatest assets a believer can have (faith, hope,
and charity- 1 Corinthians 13:13). To live one’s life in such a hopeless state
means certain defeat!
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl tells of his years trapped
in the despicable horrors of Auschwitz and
Frankl wrote that he was able to
survive because he never lost the quality of hope. Those prisoners who lost
faith in the future were doomed. When a prisoner lost hope, Frankl said, he let
himself decline, becoming subject to mental and physical decay. He would die
from the inside out.
Frankl said that this usually
happened quite suddenly. One morning a prisoner would just refuse to get up. He
wouldn’t get dressed or wash or go outside to the parade grounds. No amount of
pleading by his fellow prisoners would help. No threatening by the captors
would have any effect. Losing all hope, he had simply given up. He would lay
there in his own excrement till he died. American soldiers later told Frankl
that this behavior pattern existed also among prisoners of war, and was called
“give-up-it is.”
When a prisoner lost hope, said
Frankl, “he lost his spiritual hold.”
✞ Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
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