God’s Love for Us
Before I got married, I had specific expectations of what my marriage would and would not be. We would love each other sacrificially. We would not fight. We would work through conflict, not hold grudges.
All of that lasted exactly three days after we said “I do.” We didn’t do any of it. We got petty and selfish, we fought, and I held a grudge—all on our honeymoon. I cried, “Why? Why does marriage have to be so hard? Why do we have to bend and change and grow? Why can’t we just stay the same?”
I tend to ask the same thing of God.
There is a reason the marriage relationship is often used as a metaphor for our relationship with God. Both are intimate. Both require faithfulness, trust, love, protection. Both require us to change, to be better, to become more.
God is who he says he is. He is the God who made the world (Gen. 1). He is the God who promised Abraham he would build a nation upon his childless shoulders (Gen. 12). He is the God who saved Israel form generations of slavery (Exodus). He is the God of the Old Testament. He is the God of the New Testament.
No place in the Bible describes our relationship with God more vividly or graphically than the book of Hosea. In this Old Testament book, God chooses one of his prophets to not just speak to the people in his name, but to live out the demonstration of the unfaithfulness of God’s people.
God calls Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer. God calls Hosea to love, honor, and cherish her. We see him do it, time and time again. In the first chapter, “So he married Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son” (Hos. 1:3 NIV). The text implies that the child was Hosea’s. In verses six and eight, Scripture reads that Gomer, “gave birth to a daughter” and “Gomer had another son.” The wording of the text implies that these children were not Hosea’s.
Gomer’s unfaithfulness was common knowledge among the people of Israel. She would leave for days, weeks, even months at a time. Hosea wouldn’t see or hear from her, but he heard about her. He heard what she did for money, he heard where she spent her nights to get a bed.
The people of Israel were shocked that their prophet’s wife would act in such a way. Hosea reminded them, “Hear the word of the Lord, you Israelites, because the Lord has a charge to bring against you who live in the land: “There is no faithfulness, no love, no acknowledgment of God in the land. There is only cursing, lying and murder, stealing and adultery” (Hos. 4:1 NIV).
The people of God loved other things more than God: they loved other idols and festivals (Hos. 3 and 5), they loved to sin and then expect God to forgive them (chapter 6), they loved political corruption and corrupt leaders (chapters 7 and 9), and they loved to depend on their own strength and their armies (chapter 10).
Gomer loved other things and other men more than she loved Hosea. He offered safety, security, the love of family, warmth, and care, and she rejected him again and again. She did come home occasionally. Hosea met her at the door, and rather than slamming it in her face as I would probably have done to my partner, he welcomed her home with care and tenderness.
Hosea even had to buy her out of slavery, spending money to buy back what was rightfully his in order to keep her safe, to bring her home.
He pursued her. He loved her. He forgave her.
Every time.
In loving his wife, Hosea lived out God’s love for us.
God pursues us. God loves us. God forgives us.
Every time.
There was nothing Gomer could do—and believe me, she tried—to make Hosea turn away from her. And there is nothing that you or I can do that would make God turn away from us.
God pursues us. God loves us. God forgives us. He welcomes us with care and tenderness, offering us safety, security, love, warmth, and care.
Every time.
is rooted like a turnip to the plains of North Dakota where she raises great food, large numbers of farm animals, and three free-range kids with her husband. You can find her with either a book or knitting needles in her hands as she dreams up her next adventure.
Photograph © Pablo Heimplatz, used with permission
