The Holy Book of Hosea has a special place in my heart. Practicing celibacy to honour Jesus for saving my life wasn’t an easy road to travel to get here.
As you can probably imagine, being sexually abused from age four, my mental slavery to sex led me down high levels of promiscuity. Taking the journey, with Jesus, to examine the neuro-programming birthed from such horrible experiences and tackling the aftermath I recreated by succumbing to impulse-driven exploration wasn’t exactly high-tea.
I had to admit that I was the adulterer in Hosea. It is a thorn in my side that as hard as I try, I cannot reciprocate God’s Love for me. Don’t get me wrong, I desperately try my best, but I, like Israel, like all of us, let God down constantly. I cannot wait for Jesus’ Return, where once and for all this corrupted body, mind, heart will be fully transformed.
Hosea 2 vs 6-9 is so loaded with thought-provoking deep waters. As we examine the Holy Scripture there is such a longing that we sense regarding God’s Heart.
Let’s unpack it….
- Fence her in- God has given us dominion over the earth, however, we in our delusions of grandeur imagine that power extends beyond the boundaries God has put in place that can NEVER be broken. Remember, we were mercifully cast out of the Garden of Eden so that we wouldn’t grab hold of the Tree of Life in our fallen nature, forever doomed to be as we are. Our delusions extends so far that we dare audaciously imagine that we can define God, life, and ourselves. BUT, God has fenced us in. For good reason. Just look at the mess we have made.
- Thorn bushes- Thorn bushes cut deep into our flesh. As a kid I was forever coming home looking like I had wrestled lions. We quickly learn that thorns aren’t fun, hopefully wising us up to avoid the same mistake. Consequences for choices are supposed to point us towards something- good or bad choices produces good or bad outcomes.
- Wall to block her way- As the proverbial states, “You keep learning the lesson until you stop bashing your head against the same brick wall.” God isn’t trying to control us, rather God has allowed for lessons to unfold to draw our attention to the fact that a power greater than ourselves, Yahweh/Jesus/Holy Spirit, exists. Can you imagine what our world would be like if we as ourselves had no limits to power? I don’t even want to begin to think of the chaos, if we would even be alive still.
- Run after pleasure but remain dissatisfied- I don’t need to elaborate on this much. Like an addict chasing the first high, we each chase the next dopamine fix and as soon as it wears off we are left with the cold reality of being ourselves- dark, dreary, and living disappointed. Isn’t that a fact?
- Then she will seek her first husband- Step 2 of the 12 Steps of recovery states, “Coming to believe God can restore us to sanity.” God knew us before He formed us- Jeremiah 1 vs 5. By proxy God is our metaphoric first husband, our Creator, our Father, our Eternally Living God. Coming to the awareness that we as our fallen selves cannot produce what the hollow in our heart craves, should get us to desperately fall to our knees, looking up, and crying out, “God help me please.” Step 3 of the recovery process states, “Being willing to let God change us.” Consciousness that something exists must be followed by a willingness to be led into It’s Existence. Hence, we have Jesus who is THE WAY.
God has placed His Law in our hearts
God gave us His Commandments
God reveals Himself through the entire universe
God gave us Jesus to save us
God gives us mercy and grace
Yet, you and I, like Gomer, Hosea’s unfaithful wife, despite ALL the red flags depicted in Hosea 2 vs 6-8, we STILL fall for egoic god-complex (note Hosea 2 vs 9)- ‘she will never acknowledge’.
GOD LOVES US SO MUCH THAT HE HAS GIVEN US EVERYTHING IN THE HOPE THAT WE RUN OUT OF OURSELVES AND NOTICE HOW MAGNIFICENTLY BEAUTIFUL HE IS.
Aditya Saikrishna, June 16, 2023, for ‘Transcontinental Times’ writes of the Paradox of Cause and Effect, “The Paradox of Action and Reaction reveals the complex dynamics that govern cause and effect. In physics, the law of action and reaction states that there is an equal and opposite reaction for every action. This fundamental principle has far-reaching implications, not only in the realm of science but also in the intricacies of our daily lives.”
In recovery, rockbottom is a place where consequences for choices, cause and effect, have brought us to the point described in Hosea 2 vs 8-9. Our success, our moral compass, our focus gets so clouded by hedonistic instant-gratification, AND denialism, that God has to remove the things that enable us to utterly annihilate ourselves.
Let’s look at the stages of rockbottom as a roadmap to help us prevent it.
The five stages of rock bottom:
Stage 1: Lost Satisfaction or Sense of Fulfillment– Hosea 2 neatly points out that life away from God will always produce chasing but never satisfaction.
Stage 2: Lost Interest or Drive
Continual negative outcomes, and dissatisfaction will inevitably produce depression and low self-esteem, which in turn will render life meaningless, forcing us to just exist. But relationship with God will produce in us abundant life.
Stage 3: Loss of Job or Business (or Marriage), or Things of True Value -The devil wants us to sink into a pit of despair with what we truly love shattered. Invariably, when we sink into blaming God and not taking stock of the red flags God has positioned in our lives, or the VOLUME of Himself given liberally to invite us to engage Him, we will drown in our pity-party. However, as we turn to God, He has already formed the rescue plan. It’s easy to wallow in our negative outcomes by ignoring our personal responsibility. But, we must not be tempted to add coal to the fire.
Stage 4: Lost Hope -Without a plan – real clarity – and the confidence and mindset to bounce back from such adversity, men (women) can linger in a phase of lost hope for years…sometimes decades. – https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-stages-rock-bottom-chris-janzen
This is what Hosea 2 vs 8-9 is pointing us to. We can allow ourselves to deny God to the point where desperation is the last outreach to get us to seek help by seeking God.
2 Chronicles 7:14, “…if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Mark Levine is a therapist in Kentucky and Ohio, states that once we have bridged denialism and taken stock of personal responsibility for our cause and effect consequences, there must be an action plan to pursue better choices.
Hosea 2 vs 6-9 is a bold lesson for us to learn from. We do not have follow the generational footsteps of being copycats by being unfaithful to God and experiencing negative outcomes, or hitting rockbottom to jerk us into reality.
HENCE, we have THE HOLY BIBLE, in which every single possible argument of mankind is found from which we can learn and practice with all our heart to love God/Jesus/Holy Spirit by following in obedience.
Yes, we will fail, but God’s Spirit in us will turn us to God’s Law in our hearts helping us to repent.
Let’s not be fools anymore.
#Hayibo 