READ: Hosea 11:1-11
Verses
chosen for meditation: Hosea 11:8
8 How can I give you up,
O Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
REFLECT
Today,
we look at Hosea 11 from the vantage point of a divine parent who remembers
time with His child with joy, then anguishes with loneliness as the child grows
distant with ingratitude and self-destruction. Still, He pursues and looks
forward with hope for restoration and reunion.
In
Hosea 11:1, we see the vulnerable love of God. Love given freely with the
possibility of being rejected. To an all-knowing God, it was love given with
the knowledge of how rebellious Israel might grow to become. Yet, He poured out
this love lavishly.
In
Hosea 11:2-4, God tenderly brought up His child, “taking them by their arms”,
walking in step to grow the child. There is delight in both parent and child.
Parents can remember the shared joy they have and the face of their baby with his/her
first steps being taken. This dependence (holding the hand of God in walking)
was meant to continue, but Israel forgot the hand that held them, and pursued
other unreliable things.
In
Hosea 11:5-7, Israel’s rebellion persisted, and a holy God had no choice but to
pass righteous judgement. From v8, however, we begin to understand the heart of
God in all these. His “heart recoils within” Him, turning over from
condemnation to compassion. Objectively, as a just God, He must punish, but He
can never “give up” or “hand over” Ephraim/Israel to total destruction. He
would never do to them what He did to Admah and Zeboiim, cities destroyed along
with Sodom and Gomorrah. He punishes to remedy the sicknesses of His child, and
works towards reconciliation.
RELATE
In
these verses, we see the loneliness of God. We often hear of God’s power and majesty.
What about His loneliness? This may be one his greatest traits. It is one of
true love, linked to vulnerability. When God created humans to receive His love
and to love Him, He became vulnerable to their rejection.
Once,
someone asked me why didn’t God just create humans to obey His every will? If
that were to happen, we would be like robots, programmed to act on His every order.
What God wants however, is true love and communion by choice. In giving us free
will, we get to enjoy this true love. However, it also means He subjected
Himself to loneliness from those who reject His love.
There
are many kinds of loneliness. The most painful kind is enduring unrequited
love. A woman expressed this over her son who plunged into drugs for years: “I’ve
tried everything! I can’t affirm his lifestyle and values. I’m stuck, anguishing
over what he’s becoming! He won’t accept my love or my help! I feel a terrible
kind of loneliness.”
Some
of us experience such loneliness in our various circles, with people we feel
responsible for. The loneliness is not due to a lack of activity or presence,
but the frustration of not being able to get through to the people we want to
love and care for. When we agonise over this, we empathise with God’s
loneliness for all His people.
God
is lonely for us. It’s something amazing to contemplate. Almighty God, lonely. Lonely
for those who deny His existence. Lonely for those who stray. Lonely for you
and I who say we belong to Him but resist trusting Him completely. His yearning
makes Him refuse to “give us up”. At some point, we’d have exhausted our emotional
tank, giving up pursuing those in our care. But He is God, and not man (v9),
and His mercies are new every day. Bearing this loneliness for us, God
continues to pave the way for us to return home to Him.
A
woman was blown away by God’s such yearning heart for her. Having a successful
career, friends and busy activity did not remove the emptiness she felt. She stepped
into a church one day and heard of God’s grace. After months, she came to a
realisation that she was lonely for God, who completes the puzzle of her heart.
But the awesome truth that struck her was that God was lonely for her.
After
receiving the faith, she rejoiced: “Just imagine! There’s an empty place in God’s
heart that only I can fill! That’s how much God desires me.” We all have a
special place in God’s heart, that only we can fill. God yearns for us that
much. He is that lonely for us.
REST
Let’s
return to our Lord. When our repentance returns us to the right relationship
with Him, the gaping holes in our hearts would be filled. Only God can fill
them, and He wants to do just that.
Chris
Chong
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