God, You are angry.
Anger, the emotion of betrayal. Anger from injustice. Anger from deep hurt. Anger aroused from what has become of the very best of Your creation.
It feels like the rest of Hosea 1, is Your expression of anger through the deep hurt and injustice You feel.
I have often wondered after reading this chapter in Hosea, about the love chapter of 1 Corinthians 13 of the New Testament. It is a chapter that gives the description of who You are as God is Love: love is patient, love is kind, love keeps no record of wrong, and so on. What I read here in Hosea, is that Love has the right to be angry. When perfect whole-hearted love is shown, when it has been patient and kind, never having exhausted its qualities of selflessness, protection, trustworthiness, and perseverance, and never ever failing to love … yet the recipient mistreats the Lover, betrays and rejects Him, shouldn’t love be angry? Not angry in a violent, out of control fury, more an indignation, which implies that feeling of deep and justified anger at having been so wronged. It does say in 1 Corinthians 13, that love “is not easily angered”, so it would not be erroneous to say that a lover, having given perfect love, has the right to be angry over the way the brokenness in someone cannot allow love to be received or returned.
God, You name the children of Hosea and Gomer.
The first child, a son, is named Jezreel (Hosea 1:4, NIV) after a place of massacre. Bloodshed and great evil had been done in Jezreel (2 Kings 10, NIV). It is a place symbolizing how far Israel had gotten in departing from You. Hosea’s son was named “God will disperse” as a foretelling of what would eventually come to the house of Israel – becoming lost amongst the nations. Their wickedness had caused You so much grief and heartache. This son’s name represented the evil acts of a nation who had departed from intimacy with You and prostituted themselves with other lovers.
Lo-Ruhamah is the second child born, a daughter named, “not loved”. She is given this name as the emotional reaction to the rejection, deep pain and anger You feel, and over the wickedness, and the continual return of this nation to its other lovers. For, You said, “I will no longer show love to the house of Israel or forgive them” (Hosea 1:6, NIV). Her name literally means to be ‘outside’ of the gentle, compassionate, affectionate love that You had for this people. Your original created intention was for Israel, and all humanity to be intimately included ‘inside’ Your love. How sad to name a child, “unloved” and “outside”.
The third child, Lo-Ammi, is another son. His name means, “you are not my people and I am not your God” (Hosea 1:9, NIV). His name would remind people everywhere he went, of the grief and anger You felt towards this nation and the sense of abandonment from a people who turned away from You and chose to not acknowledge You and all You had done for them. A sad name to bear!
The naming of these children saddens me when I compare it to my own experience. I remember the naming of our children. We spent many hours deciding on them. They were planned and named because we liked the name and because it had some kind of family significance. As the child grew within me, I remember spending hours thinking on who this one would be, what they would look like, what their personality might be, who they would grow up to become. I thought on the deep love I had for them – my hopes and dreams and desires for them. The good things I longed for, for them – and the desire to shield them from hurt and harm. I prayed that they would know their God. And as I caressed them within my pregnant body, I had thoughts of love and well-being and hope. Their name became their identity long before they were born. Never once did it cross my mind to name my child to represent despair or brokenness or anger. Never once did I even consider giving them a name that they would carry with them always, that would speak of the heartache of the one that named them. I wanted good things and health and happiness to follow my children, not bitterness and sorrow. My children were conceived out of love and were named with expectation and joy and hopes and dreams.
I know this is not the way it has been for all children born. Throughout history, names have been given to represent the circumstances and situations that the child has been conceived and born into – some with hope for a better future in mind, but many out of the despair they felt and the terrible experiences that have been faced.
I have a beautiful friend who went through a marriage breakup. If that weren’t hard enough, she found out she had become pregnant to her husband right on the eve of the breakup. She lived through that pregnancy fearful that she would not love this child born in a time of great heartache and distress. This child grew within her in the hardest, most confusing, angry, desperate time of her life, and in many ways, the child represented the feelings and situation she found herself in. She gave her child a name which means “Love”, in the hope and desire that the feelings of love would follow the naming of her child once she saw her. And it did. This little girl is the delight of her mother’s life. Precious. Beautiful. Adored. From despair, fear and heartache came something, someone, beautiful, and greatly loved.
How broken the mother or father of a child must be to give a new life a name that represents heartache, where there are only feelings of despair and bitterness in the conception and birth of the child. New life represents hope and future, but to You, God, the birth of a new generation bought only further hurt and pain. Every moment of every day, these three children (these children of unfaithfulness – Hosea 2:4, NIV) bore the names that came from a heart totally broken, from despair and anger over abused love. Every day they walked, played, grew, and lived life with names that spoke of the emotional pain, sorrow, grief, and anguish You felt over Your people. God, this is an incredibly sad symbolic naming of the three children. That because of great wickedness and departing from You, because of the prostitution of a nation with other gods instead of intimacy with You, and the pursuit of other lovers over You, You call this people who were once invited to be included in intimacy with You, now outside of that invitation, “not loved”. (What would it be like to be outside of Your love?) And You declare that they are no longer Yours nor are You, theirs. It’s the response of a God, who is Love, whose action of love is incredibly patient and forgiving, kind and merciful, and yet is so broken-hearted, that in the injustice of it all, You respond in a very, what I consider, human-like way –
Don’t we feel the same angry response when we are unjustly treated and our love abused? God, You hurt this way too! We would want retaliation for the injustice. Out of deep hurt, we declare that we will no longer love them and that the pain they have inflicted and caused on us is too much to forgive. And, that we will no longer have anything to do with them. You hurt deeply too! It is an angry response, but not the true emotion of the heart where love is the root of this anger felt.
Yet, O thank You God that You are true and faithful to Your character, and You rename these children, “Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted” (Hosea 1:10, NIV). In the place where it was said to them, “‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God’. The people of Judah and the people of Israel will come together; they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel. Say of your brothers, ‘My people,’ and of your sisters, ‘My loved one.”’ (Hosea 1:11-2:1, NIV 1984).
Yet. This just provides my soul with such relief, for without it I too am completely lost to wretchedness. Yet! You are committed to me no matter what! Yet! You are faithful even when I am not! Yet! Your Love is greater than Your hurt! Yet! Your love cannot be withheld. Yet! Your anger lasts only for a moment (Psalm 30:5, NIV). In the same breath where it was said, “You are not my people”; You say, “they will be called Sons of the Living God”. My people. My loved ones. And Jezreel becomes a place where the marriage of Israel and Judah to their God takes place once more in a future time. God, You take that place which has been vile and ugly, and a people who had been dispersed among the nations, and reclaim the place and the people by Your grace and Your love, to You once more.
O, thank You, God, that Your love, loves beyond my unfaithfulness. That You draw me back despite me returning to prostitution time after time. That You declare me Yours though I continually depart from You and rip myself away from the unity and intimacy I vowed to You. That You love me despite my vilest adultery against You. I hurt You, God. I am one who carelessly and casually flaunts with other, counterfeit, lesser lovers who don’t care for me as You do. Instead of my eyes being toward You, my Bridegroom, I constantly look to other lovers.
Yet…yet…yet…
O thankfully, You reach down and reach out instead of withdrawing. There is nothing I, like Gomer, like Israel, like all humanity, deserve in this relationship. I am the whore. I am the harlot. I am the promiscuous one, I am Gomer, prostituting myself with many other lovers. You are the faithful one.
I sense today the pain – gut-wrenching, broken-hearted pain I cause You. Though I am thankful that You remain faithful and call me “Loved” and “Yours”, I know I too keep returning to other lovers for I am ruined and totally broken.
Yet…yet…yet, You keep inviting me back into Your love. How desperately ruined I am! How wonderfully loved I am! How faithful You are! This is Your story. The story of a God, heartbroken by our ruin, yet who is moved by love and does what it takes to redeem us!
Continued in next week’s blog…
[Hosea was a prophet of God to the nation of Israel. It is where much of this journey of love was awakened. His story is found in the Old Testament part of the Bible. Read more here.]