Heart of God

It's so incredible imagining what it would be like to be Hosea. "When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, 'Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the LORD'" (Hosea 1:2). God commands him to marry a women who will be unfaithful to him, and he does, and she is unfaithful. Then God commands Hosea to keep going back to her and keep loving her even though she doesn't love him.

They have a child together named Jezreel. Then she has a son and a daughter, named "No Mercy" and "Not My Child". The language implies that the younger two were not Hosea's children, but children from other men who his wife was having sex with. Yet Hosea takes them as his children, he adopts them and continues to love his wife.

God speaks through Hosea saying, "I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’; and he shall say, ‘You are my God’”(Hosea 2:23). Just as Hosea had taken in the children who were not his children, who were the children of whoredom, to be his, also God would love the people who had forsaken him. He would love Israel even though she was a whore. He would renew her and she would be his.

I just imagine Hosea living his life like this and realizing how hard it is to be faithful to someone who doesn't give a shit about you. Who loves you fakely, who loves at night and leaves in the morning. How he stuck with her and even loved her children. He provided for her too, giving her a home, and loving her. I just imagine how amazing and sorrowful it must have been to experience the heart of God.

I love Hosea! Another blog on Hosea to come when I finish editing it.