So I bought [Gomer] for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley.
Hosea 3:2 (NIV)

I was coaching a client last week on their Enneagram Type. As I was getting to know the person’s story, I learned that they were the youngest in birth order among their siblings. My client talked about a reality that I also experienced as the youngest child. The youngest child gets to watch all the older siblings in relationship and conflict with parents. This becomes a living lesson in child-parent relationships that can inform the younger sibling what to do, or what not to do, to avoid parental conflict, wrath, and punishment.

In the opening chapters of Hosea, God tells Hosea to marry a promiscuous and adulterous woman. The purpose of this was so that Hosea’s own marriage, his daily reality, would become a living, metaphorical, prophetic message for everyone who knew him and his situation. Life as prophetic performance art.

Today’s chapter is very short. It’s a prophetic exclamation point punctuating Hosea’s obedience, and the very real circumstances he found himself living out because of it. His wife Gomer was, as anticipated, adulterous and fell into a relationship with another man. But there was more to it than sleeping with another man. While the exact circumstances are sketchy, the text makes it clear that Gomer found herself deep in some kind of debt. In order for Hosea to bring Gomer back and restore their marital relationship he was required to pay the debt. Once he has her back, Hosea proclaims that there will be a period of sexual abstinence between them.

There is no mystery in the metaphor. Hosea makes it clear that this period of marital exile is a living picture of the exile that the nation of Israel will experience when they are taken captive by the Assyrians. Just as this period of abstinence is intended to restore the spiritual marital commitment between Hosea and Gomer, it is amidst exile that Israel’s hearts will be changed and they will rediscover God as their first love.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself moved by the fact that Hosea not only took his wife Gomer back after her adulteries, but that he had to pay her debts in order to do so. It is a living picture of Jesus’ own sacrifice, to pay the debt of my willful and repeated choices to go my own way. In paying my debts, Jesus opened the possibility that relationship might be restored between me and God.

Growing up, I learned lessons from the living example of my siblings as I watched them in relationship with my parents. As a result, my own adolescent years were relatively peaceful. In the same way, Hosea’s broken marriage, the redeeming of his unfaithful wife, and his sacrificial love for her are intended to be a living example. The poor choices I make with my free will break relationship with God just like when a spouse freely chooses to commit adultery. But Jesus chose to pay my debt in order that the relationship might be eternally restored. The only thing left to decide is how I will respond to His sacrificial love.

As I enter another work week this morning, I find myself grateful for that love, and motivated to be as faithful to Jesus as Jesus proved Himself faithful for me.

May my life be a positive, living lesson for others to see and follow.

If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.