When it's hard to love...

Hosea 14: 8b-9

I will answer him and care for him.
I am like a green pine tree;
your fruitfulness comes from me."

⁹ Who is wise? He will realize these things.
Who is discerning? He will understand them.
The ways of the LORD are right;
the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.

If only we were all really wise and able to realize these things. The words of Hosea are strong and calloused, but are also the crispest pages in my Bible as I never read these pages. Who likes to read that God will no longer be their God because he is walking away? Like a husband leaving the house angry at his cheating wife. God's people so dissappoint and break his heart that he just can't remain. This I can definitely picture thanks to today's media.

But my real question is why does he stay? Throughout the book he seems to go from one extreme to another, sometimes even in the same breath -like both a curse and a blessing. Why does he yet promise hope? Even when staying makes no sense or is not deserved?

Mercy, I am thankful for this mercy. It is this mercy and grace that enables me to turn and see how I have hurt a friend. The ways I've probably, mostly unintentionally both blessed and cursed them in the same breath.

When I first read this passage, I was reminded of a dear friend, who feels very distant from God. And it's been so long it's hard to say who walked out first and how far a part from God she is. But I do know that whatever the felt extremes (and I do feel like I have a lot of extreme friends) that God speaks hope and promise even into the most extreme situations. This is where I was also convicted of the ways I fall into these categories too. I think, in a sense we all want to be a bit dramatic and get people's attention, I believe we all want to be known and loved and adored, even if we are masquerading and it's not our true face we are putting forward. There's a sense of power and control we get to keep in these situations, we keep the upperhand. However, Hosea shows us otherwise. We will always fall left on our own, we need to be picked up. We need to trust and obey God and allow him to pick us up and dust us off (and wash our feet) and guide us in the better way we should go. I'm so glad he's more committed to me than I am to him, otherwise I'm afraid this relationship wouldn't work at all. It inspires me to be more intentional and more outwardly committed in love to my friends and those around me. Therefore, as it says in Hosea 12:6, let us return to our God, maintain love and justice, and wait for our God always (even when all we hear is silence).