Yesterday at church, Hosea was talked about. Hosea, ''The Weeping Prophet", Hosea. Hosea, the guy that God asked to marry a prostitute, Hosea. Hosea, the guy God asked to have children of unfaithfulness, Hosea. Hosea, the guy that God saw as a good guy but still asked to live a really heart-breaking life, Hosea. I must admit, as I was sitting through church I was thinking, "Oh God! Please, please please! Don't let me be like Hosea!!!! Don't be allowing me to endure this pain permanently! I don't wanna be a weeping anyone!" (-:
I will admit that I always thought of myself like the 3 Hebrew boys. Maybe God will deliver me, and maybe He won't, but either way - He's STILL God and I'm STILL going to serve Him. That being said, I never thought that my suffering would last so long! LOL I thought it'd be more briefly felt like that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Or even like that of Daniel and spending a night with lions. A night? *rolls eyes* That, I can definitely do! But THIS... Well, this hasn't been a night... or two... or a couple months...
And so there are times, many times lately, that I find myself crying and saying, "Oh Lord! I just can't do this! I'm too tired. I'm too weak. Can't I just be done?" But then I realize how right my prayers are. I can't do it. And I am tired. And I am weak. But thankfully, I serve a God that offers rest to the weary! I serve a God that is all strength! I serve a God that tells me to cast ALL my cares on Him (and He doesn't stop there) because He cares for ME!!!
Back to Hosea. So at first, I was a little discouraged. Hard to find THAT silver lining. Oh, but there is one. See, there was a reason that God asked for Hosea to live such a heart-wrenching life. Even though it's easy for our initial reaction to be, "What kind of a God would make a good man live such a terrible life?" The answer? A God with such unimaginable love that we can't even fathom. The first 10 chapters of Hosea paint such a vivid image of how sad God was that Israel totally turned away from Him... (And truthfully, some of it will step on your toes if you're not careful, at least it did mine!) But in Chapter 11... Oh it'll just rip your heart out. God remembers Israel so fondly. He speaks of the nation of Israel like is His own child. And He makes this statement in Hosea 11:9 "I will not carry out my fierce anger,nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim. For I am God, and not man — the Holy One among you. I will not come in wrath." Wow, how right was God when He said, I'm not a man. Cause after all that Israel had done, I would have wanted to come out with my head spinning around and eyes flaming.
So back to why God asked Hosea to be the "chosen one" to get to live a life mirroring the heart-break of God... because God saw that much in him. Hosea was a good guy. Good enough that God chose him to be a prophet of His beloved nation. Isn't that a humbling thought? The same can be thought of for those 3 Hebrew boys, or Daniel, or one of my all-time hero's, Job. God thought enough about these men to allow the trials in their lives...
So I'm guessing if you're going through things, like ALWAYS going through things, and you just can't pin-point why, maybe it's because God sees something in you that you don't see in yourself.
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