Let Us Return

So I've been reading Hosea, a book in the Bible in which God asks one of His prophets (Hosea) to marry a prostitute. He does and they have kids and then she goes back to her ways and causes Hosea a whole lot of trouble, the least of which is having to go get his wife and show mercy to her and then bring her back into the family. What a mess.

God goes on to say in this book that His people are just like that to Him. Like Hosea, God is the jealous and hurt husband who goes out looking, time after time after time after time again and again -- looking for His people amidst the places where they've gone to love and get pleasure from other things, where they have made themselves dirty and had intimate relations and betrayed their God by finding satisfaction with others who aren't in fact their true husband, who can't provide for them anything more than a moment's pleasure or satisfaction, or who will maybe give them some money or food or a possession and then cut and run.

Really, what do we get by going to things other than God to satisfy us?? Very little good comes out of it. Yes, some immediate satisfaction, maybe some pleasure and enjoyment. But it doesn't last and it is spoiled by how guilty and ashamed we feel when it's all said and done.

However, what this book serves is to magnify God. I mean, who in their right mind would want a wife like Gomer -- like us -- who leaves the husband and one they've been married to for pleasures elsewhere? God has every right to literally destroy us and He very well can. He has every right to banish us and never return to us again or let us return to Him.

But we see God's heart -- He longs for our love much, much, much more than we long for His... so much so that He extends Himself throughout the book to bring us back, cleanse us, heal us. His love is pictured as a furious love, a passionate love that will do whatever it takes not only to bring us back but to make sure that we stay devoted to Him. He will be faithful even when we have been faithless.

Some people out there, a great many Christians included, are bothered by a God that would do any harm to or hurt His children -- and that such a God could be, in fact, loving. Well, I know parents often do things to their children that hurt them -- sometimes physically and sometimes emotionally -- but it's for the child's good. It was and still is a common practice for shepherds to break the legs of a persistently wayward sheep and then to carry that sheep on their shoulders until the sheep is healed. By doing this, the sheep learns to stay close to the shepherd and that he can be trusted. Thus, an intimate bond is formed. I know some couples who have had to travel roads of pain and suffering to make their relationship work. In fact, for most this is the case at some point. It's almost impossible to open yourself up to another, especially in as deep a relationship as marriage, and not get hurt. We're all screwed up and, really, in various stages of health. Sometimes in order for someone to become healthy again (or at least functional in a relationship) they need to experience pain. Confrontation, hearing the truth, etc. can be just as painful as breaking a bone. And sometimes this is a process that can take awhile.

This is the kind of God we serve and some of what I saw in reading Hosea. He will go to whatever ends necessary to bring us back to Him. The fact is we have hurt Him and do hurt Him DEEPLY by our sin. It is a tear and cut deep in His heart. The greater the sin, the greater the betrayal and stab in His heart. He already has done whatever it takes to bring us back -- just look at Jesus dying on the cross and being resurrected.

But don't think God doesn't discipline His children. Oh yes, He does. I can look at my life and see God's discipline everywhere. Thank God for that -- for He disciplines those He loves (just look at Hebrews 12 for one Scripture reference about his, among the many).

I wrote a song from Hosea out of Chapter 6 -- about returning to our God when we've done wrong things and played the harlot, about the breaking and disciplining God does in order to show His love to us, and to restore and revive us to Himself. This is the sacrificial and loving nature of our God: while His love is enduring and faithful forever, it is alo furious and passionate and neverending in it's reach towards us and desire to bring us back to Himself, whatever the cost to Him and to us. Thank God for this furious kind of love!!!!!!!

And if the thought of a God who would show you this kind of love and devotion fills you with horror and fear (honestly, sometimes I have this reaction) consider this: His love WILL save us from hell -- something so very horrible that even the extremes of His love are like the soft touch of a feather in comparison with the punishment and torment in that place. Better to receive judgment and discipline in this life than in the life to come.


Come, let us return to the Lord
Come, let us return to our God
Come, let us return to our first love

He has torn us, He will heal us
He has wounded us, He will bandage our wounds

After two days, He will revive
On the third day we will rise, rise!

So let us know and press on to knowing
The Lord whose going forth is certain
As the dawn, as the rising of the sun

He will come, He will come, refreshing spring rains
He will come, He will come, water to the thristy
He will come, He will come, we will live again
He will come, He will come, and He will be our husband