She Reads Truth: HoseaSample

Hosea 14 + 2 Corinthians 5:14-17

It hasn’t been any easy journey through the book of Hosea, has it?  There have been hard words to hear, hard sins to face, hard discipline to bear.

As strange as it sounds, it reminds me of our church choir.

On a recent Sunday, our choir sang an arrangement of “The Lord of the Dance” that had everyone squirming in seats.  Throughout the hymn, the key shifts from major to minor without explanation, the tempo slows, then speeds up erratically.  The end result is a song that truly is hard on the ears.  “But they would not dance, they would not follow me,” the Lord laments in the lyrics, adding to the misery.

And yet, in this discomfort there is beauty.  And the beauty is in the return.

Eventually the key returns to major.  The tempo returns to something we can stomach.  And in the closing line, the Lord returns, singing, “I am the life that’ll never, never die, I’ll live in you if you live in me.”

Hosea 14 reveals how we too can find the beauty in the discomfort of being faced with our idolatry, our sin, the emptiness of living without a King, and ultimately our punishment and destruction.

Seek His forgiveness and grace.

Find His compassion. (Hosea 14: 1-3, NIV)

Return.

The Lord says, “I will heal their waywardness, and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them.” (Hosea 14:4, NIV)

And the doorway to that return is death.  We are redeemed through the death of His son, who bore that anger for us, and ultimately through the death of who we were before the key change.  “The new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cornithians 5:17, NIV)

Please know, friends, you can return.  No matter what you’ve done, no matter how off-key you’ve been, no matter how much your tune has had you squirming in your seat, it’s never too late in the song to return to Him.

He’s waiting to heal us, to redeem us, to love us.

And the beauty is in the return.

Join the SheReadsTruth Community: http://bit.ly/SRTHoseaDay16