Hosea 11: A Paraphrase

Hosea 11: A Paraphrase

(For my sisters, my Young Life girls, and all the rest of us who need to be reminded how gently, fiercely and persistently we are loved despite all our wanderings, fears and failures.)  

When you were just a little girl, I loved you. And out of captivity, sin, depression, anxiety and hopelessness I called you. But the more I called you, the more you ran away. You just kept chasing after worthless things to find your identity and purpose and life...you kept giving your time and energy and thoughts and affections to empty idols...shiny promises of life and meaning.

But in the end they never delivered.

It was I who taught you to walk. I held your hands as you took your first tentative steps, wide-eyed and wobbly, but you didn't know it was me. You didn't know it was me that healed and cared for you...watched over you and kept you from harm. I led you with cords of kindness. I wrapped you in bands of love. I carried your load so life and it's struggles wouldn't be so heavy on your shoulders. I bent down to feed you...to provide for you and meet your needs in the most gentle, complete and intimate way possible.

But you will not come back home.

You will be ruled by the tyrant enemy kings you chose for yourself, the ones who have anything but your best interests in mind...the ones who rule without mercy and compassion and justice. The ones who care nothing for the people who are subject to them, but only for themselves and how you can meet their needs and further their selfish agendas. All this because you refuse to come home to me...

...the one who created you, who knows you completely and loves you relentlessly.

War, chaos, conflict and strife will rage through your days...they will tear down the walls and defenses and safeguards you have built for yourself to protect your heart and soul...they will consume and destroy you because you followed your own faulty "wisdom."

You are bent on turning your back on me, and though you sometimes mention my name, and occasionally give me lip service, I'm not going to do you any favors any more.

But...


...wait...


How can I give up on you, my precious daughter? How could I ever just let you go, little girl? How could I destroy you, or let you end up like someone shamed, hopeless, wandering on the street with the light gone from her eyes and the life gone from her bones? My heart breaks at the thought. My compassion is stirred...warm and tender. I will not carry out my burning anger.

I will not destroy you or turn away from you.

I could never reject you...because I am God and not mere man. Because of who I am (not because of who you are, or anything you could do, or earn, or prove, or be). I am the holy one in this relationship...perfect in love and truth and justice...I will not bring my wrath to the table.

You will come running back to me.

I will roar like a lion, and when I roar, my children will come flying home like little birds. You will come trembling with hope, flying from all the barren places where you have pitched your tents. And then I will welcome you back to your real home, the place where you belong...where you are cared for, where you can thrive and flourish, where you are called by your name...where you have a history and a family...where you are know and loved with an unconditional, honest, never-ending, forever kind of love.

You will be home.

Hope, Heaven, & Why It Still Hurts

My Grandpa Eben passed away Tuesday night. I was at Target shopping for Young Life club supplies on Monday morning when my mom called to tell me he had taken a turn for the worse. As soon as my sister made it home from Denver on Tuesday afternoon we headed across the state, and we were an hour from the Tyndall hospital when we received word that he was gone.

Though it seemed to happen quickly, his death was not tragic.

I say this because my grandpa lived a long, rich life, and he followed Jesus faithfully. He loved nine children and one woman (for 68 years!) He ran his business with integrity and was a respected member of his community. He served with the Gideons for many years, working to get scripture into the hands of people who otherwise may never have laid eyes on a copy. He taught his kids and grandkids and great-grandkids to love and fear the Lord. He had no undone business here, and his heart was ready to come face-to-face with his Savior. He finished well.

My grandpa was 89 years old and his health had been declining for the last few months, so his passing did not really come as a shock. But while we were probably all as "ready" as folks can be to let go of someone whom they love very much, it is still painful.

Why?

How can we feel so blindsided by something we know is so inevitable? We spend our whole lives with the full knowledge that we - and all the ones we hold most dear - will eventually be gone. But we don't want to say goodbye, and we invest the best of our resources to delay doing so. If we could have it our way, we'd all live forever, and it doesn't matter how long we have to see the end coming, it still hits us like a ton of bricks in the long run.

But, why?

The primary reason I can think of for this is that we simply weren't designed to deal with death. Our hearts and minds and souls were not made know to the "end" of the hearts and minds and souls whom we love. It was never part of the plan and so we never get used to it. We're not supposed to get used to it because that foreign, forlorn ache we feel in the face of death is part of our DNA that reminds us where we came from. God has "set eternity in the hearts of men." We were created to live forever and this is why we long for it so.

In Young Life, one of our tag-lines is "You Were Made for This." The phrase sort of takes on multiple meanings, but primarily it is rooted in the idea that our mission is to introduce adolescents to Jesus...to Life & Light...to the only who can rescue us from the dominion of darkness, the curse of death. We were made to know Jesus. We were made to live forever.

My grandpa's faith is now sight and I can't help but wonder if on Tuesday night, when he left this beautiful (but broken) place and finally arrived home, he said to himself, "Now this...this is what I was made for."