You’ve got to be kidding me

Hello again! Today we start an exciting new chapter in our journey through the Bible. We’re opening the Book of Hosea, which is the first of twelve short books at the end of the Old Testament about those often described as the Minor Prophets. Twelve books means twelve months so that’s the next year planned out!

I have to admit I haven’t delved into these books very often in my life so far so yes, I am genuinely excited about what we are going to discover in their pages.

So…Hosea. This is all about a man with a broken heart, a prophet in pain.

I want to know what love is. I want you to show me.

That sums it up, really.

Hosea is a prophet in the norther kingdom of Israel with the kingdom of Judah to the South. He’s preaching about thirty years before the downfall of Israel – in the 8th century BC, when Israel was pagan, proud and prosperous. No one was listening to talk of God and judgement – all of that kind of talk seemed preposterous from where they were standing at the time. Assyria is the rising superpower and the king of Israel tries to resist Assyria by making an alliance with Syria, as also recorded in Isaiah 7. So whilst these books are collected together at the end of the Old Testament, this is not for chronological reasons. Hosea was prophesying alongside Isaiah.

And one final thing, before we start, the names Hosea, Joshua and Jesus are all from the same Hebrew root word meaning salvation, more specifically ‘The Lord saves’.  Keep that in mind.

The word of the Lord that came to Hosea son of Beeri during the reigns of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, and during the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash king of Israel. Hosea 1:1

The life of Hosea is set in an historical context. This is not just a fictional story made up to make a point.

When the Lord began to speak through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, marry a promiscuous woman and have children with her, for like an adulterous wife this land is guilty of unfaithfulness to the Lord.”  Hosea 1:2

What on earth is God playing at? Throughout history to this point, God has asked people to do some pretty ridiculous things. He asked Noah to build an ark on dry land for example. But this? This seems like a massive ask!

You can just imagine the initial thoughts running through Hosea’s mind –

You’ve got to be kidding me! Marry a promiscuous woman! Are you for real? What will people say? Everyone will think I’ve gone crazy! I’m a respectable man and respectable men do not marry women like that. Women with a past like that are not wife material. How can I be a good witness to you, God, if I become linked to a woman like that? And then have children with her? How can that be part of your divine plan? I must be hearing things. I must be mistaken. I want to serve you, of course you do, but what you’re asking is too much.

Just imagine the conversation with his parents and friends, when he tells them that God has asked him to do this thing.

Hosea, you’ve got it wrong. God would never ask such a thing. We know you. We know you can’t do this. Think of yourself, Hosea – think of your future, your reputation. Think of the neighbours, the local tradesmen…no one will want anything to do with you. Everyone will think you’ve gone mad or been corrupted, taken in by no better than a prostitute. And as for this being God’s idea, who do you think you are? Do you really believe you can hear God speaking and so you really believe He would ever say something like this? Forget it, Hosea, and get on with your life. Walk away. Women like that only bring trouble.

Has God ever asked you to do something completely crazy? It can be hard to trust that the idea is from God, can’t it? I remember wrestling with the decision as to whether to adopt Jordan and Nicola or not. On paper, it was a crazy idea. To go from three to five children was massive. To take on two more children with unknown needs when we had already adopted one child was a huge risk. Our hearts said yes, we could do this, but we were worried this was an emotional response that was not grounded in a reality of what we could realistically manage. Our families were worried for us. Some felt it was too much. Too many unknowns. Too many risks.

In the end, we prayed that God’s will would be done, that God would be in the decision making process with Social Services. That was all we could pray. And so many weird things happened in that process that it did begin to seem possible that God did have a hand in it all, that maybe it was meant to be. And since then, there have bee low days when I have questioned if we were up to the task, if God had given us more than we could handle, if we’d got it all wrong…but our family is our family and I wouldn’t have it any other way, I really mean that. We have had to learn to depend on God so much along the way, which we may never have done if we had not allowed this seemingly crazy decision to be made.

There have been others, but I guess that stands out as the biggest ask that we have faced. And we’ve faced criticism along the way. We’ve been judged by plenty of others. We’ve had to trust that God knows what He’s doing, even when it doesn’t look like it.

Life is full of decisions. We can take the safe option or we can choose to follow God into unknown territory way outside our comfort zone. That’s the place where we will learn to rely on God because we will have no choice. It can be scary and messy and unpredictable out there, but that’s where life is to be lived to the full.