Hosea is a story of warfare and marriage, and how the Lord and His prophet navigate through that journey. God must instruct Hosea to know a love which is unfailing, just as God invites Israel to Himself, even in the horrific state of brokenness. Hosea must invite Gomer to himself as well. When love abounds, abandonment isn’t an option.
The Lord’s vision for Israel and Hosea’s vision for his wife, Gomer, outlasted the betrayal that both God and the prophet suffered. We don’t think in the terms of God agonizing over the loss of accountability among His people. For without accountability, idolatry and adultery become the behavioral pattern of a disoriented community. Society inevitably falters when our love for God and each other is absent. God and Hosea must do something shocking to cure His people who were always fluctuating in their love. Gomer and Israel’s self delusion had to be terminated. Both God and the prophet have one ambition, and that is to restore relationship with Israel and Gomer. So here the Lord speaks through Hosea.
“How can I give you up, Israel? How can I abandon you? Could I ever destroy you as I did Admah, or treat you as I did Zeboiim? My heart will not let me do it! My love for you is too strong.”
Hosea 11:8 GNTD
God doesn’t confront to prove He’s right, He confronts to penetrate the conscience. He has been deserted by the very wife He loves and in His anguish, His heart won’t let her go. So the Lord gives Hosea the rare privilege to be able to see the inner being of how He feels. This is why the Lord must insert His word in Hosea, so that the prophet doesn’t speak from anger, but from the very inner being of God. The prophet must not collapse into rage, he must be moved to relent. Hosea must become as vulnerable as the Lord is, fully engaged in Gomer’s life just has God is engaged in Israel's life.
What does this narrative tell us today? I believe it tells us how to navigate through relational warfare. Just like a marriage, when there is deep betrayal and conflict, how will we respond? Do we quickly forsake the relationships that we have formed in church? Do we look for the perfect ministry in order to grow? Or do we learn from Hosea about the power to love, the power to forgive, and the power to weep in the midst of unfaithful people. Hosea shared God’s hope for a restored people, do we? For Hosea and God the answer wasn’t to leave and remarry, the answer was to strengthen the commitment to love. Not because it was easy, but because love would win, it would hope, it would protect and it would persevere. Even in the midst of an unhealthy environment, God’s love can cure any relationship. I yearn to love like that.