Read Verses: Hosea 2:5-8
Key Verse: Therefore I will block her path with thornbushes; I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way.
The book of Hosea is a picture of God's love for Israel while Israel is flirting with other gods. This is pictured in the marriage of Hosea and His wife Gomer. Gomer was a wild woman, constantly going after other men, Hosea played the part of God faithfully chasing after her time and time again. God doesn't like to give up on anyone. If you know anyone who has been hurt by marital infidelity, then you know the pain Hosea is going through. But he chooses to go through this pain time after time. He refuses to give up on Gomer. In the same way, God refuses to give up on us.
Do you have someone in your life who has turned away from God and is going a different direction. Maybe its a spouse, maybe a child...a friend...some other member of the family. People struggling in their walk with God is not a new thing. Even coming to the place where they seem to give up on God and start trying something else to satisfy. What can we do when we come across a person like that? Where can we go? We can lift up our hearts in prayer, God knows the ways of a loving parent and a rebellious son. He's been there, he's shed tears for his children. In chapter 2 of Hosea we see how God deals with such rebellion.
How does Hosea handle Gomer? How does God handle us? There's a sense in which God allows the rebellion to happen and allow it to reap its own consequences. From the passage, others lose interest in her and she comes back to her husband. This is what also happens with the prodigal son. But note in Hosea, God is actively blocking her path with thornbushes. He is walling her in. Things are getting difficult for Gomer, she isn't very happy with her new found freedom. God isn't blessing her choices, rather, he setting up life to be discouraging to her. You could say Hosea and God are refusing to be enablers.
We should work with God on a similar plane. Here is a pattern for how to pray for that rebellious person. "Lord, block their path with thornbushes." We further lift up our hearts and pray that they find quickly that sin ends in emptiness. Nobody likes to see their loved ones suffer. But we do want them to gain Christ. Rebelliousness is a hard lesson in life. I remember rebelling against my parents and doing my own thing. Nobody could tell me what to do. Things got worse and worse to the point I was living on the streets in Toronto. A few times I was so hungry I found thrown away food in garbage cans to eat. It wasn't that long before I was like the prodigal, begging my mother for another chance to change. Within three months of going through all those experiences, I found Jesus in a church meeting in Mississauga. God was there to turn my life around, he was close by all the time.
God knows we don't help people by blessing their sin, but by praying that people would see that the world has nothing much to offer. Jesus, he's the answer to all our needs. He's the one who has life giving water. He is the only one who can set us free and give us life to the full. Gomer, she made a bad choice...the quicker she learns that she made a bad choice the better. And when we turn around to make the right choice...God is there.
Our Father in Heaven, We lift up the lives of ______________ . We pray Lord that you would put a hedge of thorns around their life...that wherever they move they are struck by the pointlessness of the world. Show how lost they are and how pointless and directionless life is without your Spirit guiding them. Lead them back to the Rock, to the Fountain of life giving water, to the living bread...that they may find peace and rest in Your presence. Place a burden in their hearts to return home to the grace which exceeds our sin and our guild. In Jesus Name we pray...AMEN.
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