Choices in Life

07.05.14

Hosea 3.3 Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” NIV

We cannot read Hosea 3.3 without continuing on to read Hosea 3.4-5: 4 For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or sacred stones, without ephod or household gods. 5 Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days.

The prophecy of Hosea only makes sense when we understand that “Hosea” is God, and his adulterous wife Gomer is Israel – God’s beloved people who rejected His love. Now, Hosea was a real person and his adulterous wife Gomer was a real person. They lived, loved, and laughed… that is, when she wasn’t out prostituting herself with other men.

I was talking with a young man the other day and we were discussing some of his woes with a young lady in his life. He explained that “about once a month” things got really dicey in their home for about a week. We talked through the physiology of it and then I shared a trade secret with him – I said: Face it bro, women are strange creatures. We laughed but I think he got what I meant. It’s one thing to be strange because of the physiology of it, but then throw in the emotional and the mental and well, you get the picture. (Girls, I mean no disrespect at all – I don’t know if we men would handle those physiological circumstances, we’re pretty stange at times too.)

The prophet Hosea was God’s spokesperson to Israel, the chosen nation, the favored nation to bring the message of God’s frustration, anger, and sorrow at being rejected by His wife: the nation He formed and the “bride” He chose – a bride intended to love only Him and be an example of the love to the rest of the world. God’s wife chose to sleep around with other men.

I looked up the name Gomer and found these definitions: 1) (military) an inept or stupid colleague, especially a trainee. 2) (medical) A troublesome patient, especially an elderly or homeless one. 3) (Bible.com) Vanishing. It makes us think a bit differently when we put some color into the picture. Gomer was all this and more to Hosea. Israel was all that and more to God.

The message to me is simply this: beware your choices in life. I have been a Gomer to God on countless occasions. Regardless of my checkered past one thing is for sure: God has pursued me the entire way; He’s never taken His eyes off of me – not even in my worst moments. And like Hosea reconciling with his Gomer, God has helped me to know:  Paul, you are to live with Me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any thing, and I will be faithful to you. I am always faithful Paul; you be faithful as well. Our relationship with God is all about faithfulness.

Father, You have said, if we are faithful in little things when no one else is looking or cares then we will be faithful in big things and everyone will know. May I be faithful in all things in my walk with You, in my life with others, and in my choices in life. Amen.