Filed under: devotional
“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. But the more I called Israel, the further they went from me. They sacrificed to the Baals and they burned incense to images. It was I who taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by the arms; but they did not realize it was I who healed them. I led them with cords of human kindness, with ties of love; I lifted the yoke from their neck and bent down to feed them.” –Hosea 11:1-4
My current Scripture reading is going through the prophetic literature as it parallels the Samuel-Kings accounts of all the good and bad kings of Israel/Judah. It’s a good reminder of the historical context of the prophets.
At times there is a lot of jarring anger and judgment that is still difficult for me to read. But you also come by passages like this one in Hosea, and you feel the utter betrayal and hurt even. So much for the notion of an impassive God.
It also reminds me that we can forget how poisonous our idolatries become in pushing us away from our source in God. Sure we don’t have gold, silver or wood statues anymore, but our idolatries are no less dangerous: money, power, sex, materialism, entertainment, etc. The prophets shake us out of our little assurances that “everything is OK” and “everyone else is doing it.” I may not like hearing it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need it!
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The Bivocational Reader 