Take to yourself…

 

God, You ask Hosea to take to himself (Hosea 1:2 NKJV), Gomer. You ask him to unite with her, take her to himself in closeness, in vulnerability, and in genuine care for her – to join, to marry, to make her his own precious wife – for life. You are not just asking Hosea to marry Gomer by law only,

You are asking him to unite himself in the closest, most endearing way possible.

You ask Hosea to love her, as You love her.

There is a phrase, he knew his wife, which refers to intimacy, the physical act of two becoming one. A symbol of the oneness and intimacy to be shared by the two in all of life – the physical, the spiritual, the emotional, the day by day, moment by moment doing life together. The two would come together having kept themselves for this purpose of intimacy with each other. But God, You ask Hosea to take a known harlot from an Israelite town, a prostitute, a whore, a promiscuous woman – a used and abused, despised, looked down upon, rejected by society except-for-when-the-need-arises, spoiled, broken and brokenhearted woman.

   

But it seems You ask Hosea to marry Gomer as a portrayal of Your Love towards a people that are unfaithful, and who willingly keep walking away from You.

I’ve been thinking about the concept of willingly. It is not an easy word to define in the context here. Willingly bears with it decisions and actions stemming from all that has gone on before; it includes experience and knowledge and desires all muddied by the deception of sin and a broken world. A woman does not desire prostitution, but she will return to it if her experience and knowledge tell her it’s all she is worth, it’s all she can do, she deserves nothing better, she knows nothing else, there is nothing pure or worth dreaming of about love out there. She may be deceived into prostitution through the lure and false hope of satisfaction, of being needed and wanted, of money and beautiful clothes and perfumes and of a twisted perception of love. To willingly return to prostitution just means to me that this one, Gomer, has been so broken along the way. Why else would she choose it over a beautiful Love?

What did it mean for Hosea, a man of God, to marry a prostitute? What did his family think? His religious community? His friends? The whole nation? It, to them, was a shocking, sacrilegious, profane, irreverent, dishonorable, disgusting, morally inappropriate and depraved thing to do. She is dirty, ruined, and known by many men. There is nothing pure here, in this context. Nothing ‘beautiful’ about this bride – except perhaps her face and her body – a body that has been used for sex: of the lust kind, outside of vows and commitment, taking, using, kind of sex.

But love sees beyond that. Hosea sees her and loves her. He acts out of obedience to his heart, both toward You and his feelings towards her. He desires an intimate relationship with this disreputable girl. He loves this unloved and unable-to-love girl. How like You, God, this is!

God, who was Gomer? Who was she as a person? What was her story? How did she get to this place? Was she living in poverty and allured by the money? Was she abused as a child leaving her with a screwed view of love and sex? Was she kicked out of home and in her society with no education, being scorned for her rebellion, with no job skills and no rights, was this her only prospect? Did she get tripped up in the enticement of an over-curious attraction to sex? Had she experienced failure in life and relationships and thought the only thing she could be successful at was the selling of her body? Was she desperately lonely and longing to be wanted? Did her family, out of a misconstrued religious devotion and obligation, give her to be a temple prostitute? Was she sold for the price of a next meal? Questions I cannot know the answers to. But I do know this, something happened along the way to break and ruin her –

a little girl does not dream of growing up to be a prostitute.

I say this, and I believe it to be true, yet I know girlhood dreams can be twisted and messed up. I have a friend whose life was raised in broken relationships, mistrust, dysfunction and warped perceptions of love. I don’t remember how the conversation started, but when I said the words, “a little girl doesn’t dream of growing up to be a prostitute”, this person replied with the words, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I know girls who do.” God, I know it’s a value issue. I know that little girls can look at beauty, and have the strong inner desire to be wanted, especially if they’ve received little or no real love, and these can be twisted into believing that value and love can come through a man lusting for her body, and if she gives him what he wants, then she has gained the so longed for value and love that her heart craves.

Humanity’s value system is totally corrupt! This is such broken thinking, and terribly sad. It’s a broken world’s view of value that leaves humanity feeling empty, yet thirsty for love, but one which has created a billboard illusion that real love, real intimacy, real value, is in the physical.

In asking Hosea to take Gomer, the reality is, You asked him to unite himself intimately to someone for who intimacy and trust would have been no longer things allowed in her mind. These things would have been banned from her thinking and pushed away down deep in order to survive her life. A life that she thought may have given her value, but has left her feeling of no value. How does he engage in intimacy then with someone who can’t? Someone whose emotional walls of protection are so high? Someone who has been lied to about love? Disillusioned about love? No longer believes in love? Someone so deeply hurt? Someone who has been used and abused all under the pretense of love? Someone who gives herself to men for pleasure, but for whom there is no intimacy – just a body?

   

God, You know this about her! This is part of the disastrous, heart-breaking, soul-destroying relationship You ask Hosea to enter – desiring intimacy in one whom it cannot be found! In someone who has been so ruined! Could this be how it is for You with Your people?

I was talking with a girlfriend. She shared with me a conversation she’d had with a work colleague who was about to walk out on his marriage.  He loved his wife of 12 years, but couldn’t give anymore. He had loved her the best he could, yet in return she was like a rock wall. Kindness was returned with a cold shoulder. Affirmation with a shrug or blank response. Love with aloofness. Intimacy with detachment. He knew it was reaction to past hurt within her, and that she couldn’t put it aside and move on – it was too hard. She had chosen to barrier her heart and mind to intimacy, so she wouldn’t be hurt again, and instead, she lived a numb life, hurting the one who had tried his best to love her. Could this have been Hosea’s experience with Gomer?

You ask of Hosea the hardest thing.

You ask him to enter into a relationship where his heart will be torn apart. Where the most emotionally hurtful experience of the betrayal and breaking of promises will happen. Where trust is broken. Where faithfulness is held in little regard. Where love is held in an aloof way. Where intimacy is a one-way street. Hosea walks into this knowingly, and he willingly does it anyway.

I can’t help but think that he must have truly loved Gomer. For him to experience the same feelings as the pain of Your heart, he must have loved her! Just as You loved her!

And equally, God, You ask of Gomer something impossible. To enter into intimacy. That place she has shut down. A place of vulnerability. You love her with love as the LORD loves (Hosea 3:1 NIV) – through this man, Hosea. Love could not be allowed in her life. It was too dangerous, too terrifying. Her heart only has one option, to defiantly reject it with the cry, “Don’t you dare love me!” and to willingly walk away.

Continued in next week’s blog…

 

[Hosea was a prophet of God to the nation of Israel. It is where much of my journey of love was awakened. His story is found in the Old Testament part of the Bible. Read more here.]

 

 

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