Monthly Archives: November 2023

Chapter-a-Day

“Like the Rain”

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"Like the Rain" (CaD Hos 6) – Wayfarer

“Let us acknowledge the Lord;
    let us press on to acknowledge him.
As surely as the sun rises,
    he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
    like the spring rains that water the earth.”
Hosea 6:3 (NIV)

The latest census shows that 80% of Americans live in urban and suburban areas. Only 20% live in the rural areas that make up the vast majority of the map. Growing up in Iowa, one inherently learns that there is a connection between life and agriculture. When life depends on agriculture, the weather plays a major part of the days and seasons.

When I was young, there was a summer marked by severe drought. I remember that an unexpected rain shower broke out one evening near a town where the farmers and residents had gathered to pray for rain. The local television station immediately scrolled the news across the screen.

For the ancients, agriculture and the weather was more critical than it is for American farmers today. A drought means major economic hardship in the heartland, but back in Hosea’s day a drought meant famine and death. Rain was equated with the perpetuation of life itself.

Just prior to reading through these ancient prophecies of Hosea, this chapter-a-day journey trekked through Amos. The prophet Amos came just before Hosea, and his prophecies were all angry protest songs filled with judgement and condemnation for the corruption and evil that was happening in the land. I find Hosea presenting a contrasting message that is more far-sighted than Amos. Yes, there is the condemnation of evil and a calling out of the corruption, but Hosea’s vision continually sees beyond the judgement and exile to the restoration and blessing God is also promising on the other side of it.

I can’t help but wonder if Hosea’s own relationship with his promiscuous and adulterous wife, and the redemption and restoration of his marriage, provided him a larger understanding of God’s own heart.

In describing the restored relationship after the time of exile, Hosea begins by assuring his listeners that God’s love and grace will appear “as surely as the sun rises.” I was reminded of Paul’s words to Timothy: “If we are faithless, God remains faithful for he cannot disown Himself.” Hosea then provides a beautiful word picture: God comes like the rain. The water of life pours from heaven, replenishing the land from the death of winter; Giving birth to new life and the promise of an abundant harvest to come.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself appreciating Hosea’s far-sightedness to look beyond the impending drought of judgement and exile. Glancing back over my shoulder, I remember seasons of drought that have dotted my spiritual journey. I have found that drought happens spiritually just as it does in the physical world. However, with each season of drought, God has always, eventually “come to me like the rain”that replenishes, restores, and gives birth to new life.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Addicted to Security

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Addicted to Security (CaD Hos 5) – Wayfarer

“Then I will return to my lair
    until they have borne their guilt
    and seek my face—
in their misery
    they will earnestly seek me.”
Hosea 5:15 (NIV)

Wendy and I recently read an article in the Wall Street Journal regarding the state of Oregon’s experiment with legalizing drugs. The idea was that making drugs legal would lead to fewer problems, but it has led to more problems with homelessness, vagrancy, and crime. Since drugs are legal, there’s little that can be done. There is a movement now within the state to re-criminalize drugs and it currently has the support of a majority of citizens.

It is well known in the Twelve Steps that one often has to hit rock bottom before the epiphany of the First Step becomes real: We realized that we were powerless over [insert your drug of choice here] – our lives had become unmanageable. It is also well known in the Twelve Steps that some individuals will never have the epiphany before it’s too late.

I thought about these things as I read Hosea’s prophetic proclamation to Israel and Judah this morning. God’s people were drunk on wealth, affluence, greed, corruption, and the lascivious worship of idols. They were addicts, relishing the fruits of their corruption and refusing to change their ways. God, through Hosea, proclaims that both of the stubborn nations will find themselves carried off into exile. It is only then, finding themselves captives in a foreign land, that they will have their rock bottom, First Step epiphany and be ready for Step Two and Step Three:

We came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

We made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God.

In Hosea’s prophetic message, he calls out the national of Israel for paying tribute to the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were an emerging empire and regional powerhouse. Israel’s tribute was meant to buy Assyria’s loyalty and protection. Thinking they were safe and secure under Assyria’s wing, it would be Assyria itself that would destroy Israel and take her people into captivity and exile.

As I meditated on this in the quiet this morning, it struck me that drugs are not the only thing to which we are addicted. I’ve observed that people can get addicted to safety and security. We can get addicted to our affluence. We, like Israel, pay tribute for a sense of security. We pay tribute to a corporation to feel safe in our income and employment. We pay tribute to a government to feel the security of a social and economic safety nets. And yet, I have sat with grown men crying when, having been downsized, laid-off, or let go, they suddenly realized that the corporation didn’t really care about them, their career, or their security. I have listened to people stuck in the no-man’s land of a government bureaucracy that is deaf and uncaring to the suffering individual.

In the quiet this morning, my thoughts lead to my own life, my business, and my security. I’ve long believed that the only one I can really trust is God. I don’t trust human corporations, kingdoms, governments, or empires. When it comes right down to it, they care nothing about me or my needs. God has, however, proven Himself faithful time-and-time-again as I make a habit of placing my trust in Him. This has been true even when He has allowed me to make foolish choices and experience my own rock bottom moments in order to take my own personal First Step, then the second, and third, until I found myself at The Eleventh and Twelfth Steps:

We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to addicts, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

As I enter my day, I find myself whispering the Serenity Prayer of the the Twelve Steps:

Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

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

Chapter-a-Day

Priests

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Priests (CaD Hos 4) – Wayfarer

“Because you have rejected knowledge,
    I also reject you as my priests”
Hosea 4:6 (NIV)

As I have continued to read and study the Great Story over my lifetime, I’ve come to the realization that I can’t truly understand or appreciate what God is doing unless I understand the concept of being a priest.

The concept of being a priest is one who spiritually stands in the gap between God and others. A priest is a go-between, a representative, and a spiritual conduit. If I look at how the priesthood works in the institutional church, the priest is the one who presides over the rites and sacraments. In the Roman tradition, it is through the priest that absolution for sin is granted; The priest being the conduit between the penitent and God, through which forgiveness flows.

But I find the concept of the “priesthood” far more expansive in God’s point-of-view than the narrow definition the institutional church has made it out to be. When God initiated His covenant with Abraham, He told Abraham that he would be the father of many nations through which “all the nations of the earth will be blessed” (Gen 18:18). When God led the Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt, gave them the Law, and established them as a nation He called them “a kingdom of priests” (Exodus 19:6). In the early Jesus Movement, Peter wrote to his fellow believers and said:  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:8) In John’s Revelation, he sees people of every tribe, nation, and language and is told that Jesus has “made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God.” (Revelation 5:10)

In each of these instances the priesthood is not a special ecclesiastical position held by a few educated and appointed men. Throughout the Great Story, God refers to the priesthood in terms of an entire group of people beginning with the Hebrew nation and then, through Jesus, expanding it to the spiritual nation of believers of every tribe, nation, and tongue.

This is not a small matter of definition. It gets to the heart of what God has always been doing, is currently doing, and will continue to do: Establishing an entire collective of people who will be a conduit through which those who are strangers to God can find their way to God.

In today’s chapter, God through Hosea tells the people of Israel that He is rejecting them, collectively, “as my priests.” Once again, God views the entire nation of Hebrews as His priests, not just the sons of Aaron and Levites who performed the rituals in the Temple.

When the Jesus Movement became the Holy Roman Empire in the fourth century, a change slowly took place in which the organism of the church became the organization known as the Church. The spiritual Jesus movement became a human empire, the most powerful political and religious institution in the western world. With it, the priesthood was transformed into an exclusive position for educated (or connected) men controlled by the institution. This paradigm was perpetuated through the centuries, even by the plethora of protestant denominations after the Reformation. It is still the pervasive paradigm, though I sense the winds of change shifting as the institutions have imploded during my lifetime.

In the quiet this morning, I am reminded that as a believer and follower of Jesus, I am a priest in the royal priesthood made up of all believers. Just as God called Hosea to be a living lesson as I described in yesterday’s post, God calls every follower of Jesus to live as priests – those who daily live in such a way that God’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control are evident to all through my life, words, relationships, and actions.

Throughout history, I’ve observed that the institutional church has separated every day believers from those in the institution’s clergy. We’ve made different spiritual “classes.” The clergy have all the spiritual power, authority, and responsibility, while the every day members and believers are, by-and-large, stripped of any spiritual power, authority, or responsibility. This was never God’s paradigm. As a disciple of Jesus, I am gifted, empowered, called, and responsible to be a priest, a living lesson. As Jesus put it, I am to live in such a way that others might “see my good works, and glorify my Father in heaven.”

And so, I enter another day, endeavoring to fulfill my role as a member of the royal priesthood of all believers.

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

Chapter-a-Day

Living Lesson

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Living Lesson (CaD Hos 3) – Wayfarer

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.

Chapter-a-Day

Grounded for Good

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“Therefore I am now going to allure her;
    I will lead her into the wilderness
    and speak tenderly to her.”
Hosea 2:14 (NIV)

As a parent, I was always mindful of the fact that I wanted punishment to be reserved for times when our girls needed to learn something. I’ve observed that some parents use punishment almost as a preemptive weapon to exert control out of perpetual attitude of distrust. I saved punishment for a lesson when an infraction had undoubtedly occurred and our daughters needed to feel the consequences of firm and loving discipline.

I only remember grounding one of our daughters once. Taylor was in high school. A night out with the gang got out of hand. Curfew was broken and it was clear that some unwise decisions had been made. I imposed a week’s grounding, telling Taylor that she was to be home other than when she was at school or work. There was no argument. She knew she was busted.

Wendy and I still laugh about that week. It was one of the most enjoyable weeks of parenting in all of Taylor’s adolescence. She offered to help with meals each night and learn a few things in the kitchen. She asked if we could go for walks together after school, which led to good conversations. It was obvious that she’d decided that if she had to be grounded for a week she was going to make the best of it. She turned a curse into a blessing.

I mentioned yesterday that I wanted to wade into Hosea’s prophecies against ancient Israel to compare them with his immediate predecessor, Amos. Amos was all angry protest songs, doom and judgement, and words that bite. One of the fascinating things about the prophet Hosea is the way that he consistently, in the midst of pronouncing God’s judgement on ancient Israel, follows up words of judgement with words of hope.

Hosea’s overarching metaphor is that of marriage. God is the bridegroom and His people, Israel, are the bride. She, however, has been unfaithful and has worshipped other gods. God likens this to promiscuity and adultery. So, punishment is coming. She will be taken captive and sent into exile. It’s not going to be pretty. It’s going to be hard.

But then Hosea follows it up by reminding Israel that it was in the wilderness after God led them out of slavery in Egypt and was leading her to the promised land, that they were first metaphorically “betrothed.” God’s punishment of exile is not meant for harm, but for an opportunity. In the wilderness of exile, God hopes to woo the heart of his bride. His goal is not destruction but restoration, not pain but the pursuit of love.

In the quiet this morning, I’m reminded of the fact that this life journey is fraught with difficult times and painful places. Despite what many believe, God never promised to deliver us from the difficulties and pain. In fact, Jesus assured us that it would be our earthly reality. What God did promise, however, was that if we approach the difficulties and pain with faith and joy, we will find that pain produces perseverance, hard times produce hope, and bad circumstances unearth unlooked for blessings.

Note to my regular readers: I’m out next week with an intense work and travel schedule. I plan to return on Monday, November 13. If you need a fix, feel free to visit the chapter-a-day index by book, where you can click on the icon of any book listed and it will provide you with an index page of all the posts from that book. Just click on the photo for each/any chapter and it will bring up the post. Cheers!

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

Chapter-a-Day

Living Metaphor

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Living Metaphor (CaD Hos 1) – Wayfarer

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 (NIV)

In 1994, after working for six years in vocational ministry, I took a job working for the company I now own and lead. My mother was not happy. For many years, about once a year, she would ask me if and when I was going to return to vocational ministry. My response to her was that I never left ministry. It just looks different. That didn’t seem to appease her, though she eventually gave up asking the question.

Having just finished the ancient prophecies of Amos, our chapter-a-day journey pivots to the prophecies of Hosea. Like Amos, Hosea’s prophetic words were directed at the northern kingdom of Israel, and he appears on the scene right after Amos. Perhaps he actually heard Amos preach and the two knew one another. Which, is why I wanted to go right into Hosea. It’s interesting how God uses two very different men in two very different ways to communicate similar messages to the same people.

The contrast between Amos and Hosea is immediate. Amos was the archetype of the lone stranger. He was a blue-collar nobody from Judah who shows up out of nowhere to preach his prophetic messages against the nation of Israel. Hosea is from Israel. He’s a local boy that people know. He’s not just going to stand a preach in the temple. God tells Hosea that his daily life, his wife, his marriage, and his children are going to be a living metaphor, a message to his nation. God tells Hosea:

Marry a promiscuous woman, because this people have been adulterous with me in worshipping other gods.

Name your son “Jezreel” (“God scatters”) because I’m going to punish the house of Jehu (a former king of Israel) for the massacre at Jezreel (when Jehu violently usurped the throne from his predecessor).

Name your daughter “Lo-Ruhmah” (“Not loved”), as I will no longer show love to Israel, though I will show love to Judah. God miraculously delivered Judah from the Assyrians.

Name your son “Lo-Ammi” (“Not my people”), because I’m not your God, and you’re not my people.

Hosea’s poor daughter. What a moniker to put on the wee girl!

Having lived in more than one small town along my life journey, I can tell you that Hosea’s life choices would not have gone over well with his family and community. My mother was upset that I left vocational ministry. I can’t imagine her reaction had I married a woman everyone in town knew was of ill-repute and then started giving my children strange names. I can guarantee you that when Hosea walked by the elders swapping coffee and commentary by the city gate, the ol’ boys were shaking their heads. “That Hosea. Did you hear what he named his daughter? He’s a weird one. I feel sorry for his mother.”

But, that was the point. Amos’ forthright preaching seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. Hosea’s life as performance art appears to be God trying to get people’s attention by having the local boy make crazy life choices that everyone in town would question. When they questioned Hosea as to why he married that no-good Gomer, or why he named his daughter “Not loved,” he would tell them the reasons God told him to do so. And, believe me, it would definitely be talked about all over town.

In the quiet this morning, I find myself looking back at my life journey. Ever since I became a disciple of Jesus in my teens, I have continually and actively sought to discern and follow where God was leading me. There were certainly some choices I made along the way that raised eyebrows as well as questions from my family and friends. I’m sure that my life has not ended up where others would have predicted back in the day. But, I can tell you that I have no questions about the fact that I am right where I have been led, doing what I am supposed to be doing.

I get the feeling that Hosea was similarly at peace doing what God asked him to do.

I also get the feeling that his mother never stopped asking him about it.

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

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Was, Is, & Will Be

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Was, Is, & Will Be (CaD Am 9) – Wayfarer

“New wine will drip from the mountains
    and flow from all the hills,
    and I will bring my people Israel back from exile”
Amos 9:13 (NIV)

In John’s Revelation, God is repeatedly referred to the One “who was, and is, and is to come.” The fascinating thing about this phrase being used repeatedly inside a work of apocalyptic literature is that the words of the prophets are layered with meaning, referencing things that were in the past, events that were imminently current, and events that were yet to be in the future. The words of the prophets are not so much “either it means this, or it means that,” but rather “Yes, it means this and it means that.”

I didn’t plan this quick trek through the ancient prophet Amos because of the current events unfolding in the middle east between Israel and Hamas. That said, I have found it virtually impossible not to read the ancient words of the prophet Amos in context of these current events.

In today’s final chapter, God through Amos boldly predicts that disaster is going to fall on the people of Israel. He says that many will die, but then says, “I will shake the people of Israel among the nations.” The chapter ends with a vision of restoration in which the nation is rebuilt and prosper. So let me unpack my thoughts based on “what was, what is, and what is to come.”

What was…

Exile is a perpetual theme throughout the Great Story. In fact, some scholars say that it is the pre-eminent theme of the entire thing. It’s first revealed in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve sin and are cast out of the Garden of Eden into a sinful world. The rest of the Story is about humanity finding itself back in the Garden with God in the final chapters of Revelation. God calls Abram away from his home and into exile in a land God would show him. Abram’s grandson and great-grandchildren would find themselves living in exile in Egypt, where they will be enslaved for hundreds of years.

I could go on to discuss the theme of exile in the life of Jesus, the Acts of the Apostles, and the book of Revelation, but for now, let me stick to the fact exile was already an established theme of “what was” in the days our blue-collar prophet Amos was preaching to the people of ancient Israel.

What is…

The world at the time of Amos is primed for an extended period of history in which a succession of human empires will rise to control large portions of the western world. The land of Israel and Judah are nestled in a strategic crossroads between Persia, Europe, Arabia, and Africa. Any empire wanting to expand into those areas must go through the lands of the Hebrew people.

Just as Amos is prophesying exile to the northern kingdom of Israel, his prophetic successors to the south will soon begin to predict the same fate for the Hebrew people in Judah.

And, that’s exactly how it played out. It begins with the Assyrian empire who will conquer Israel (but not Judah) about 30 years after Amos’ proclaimed it. The Assyrian empire gave way to the Babylonian empire who conquered Judah and carried the likes of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Nehemiah into exile in Babylon. The Babylonians were conquered by the Medes and Persians, the Persians by the Greeks, and the Greeks by the Romans.

What is to come…

This is where things get really interesting, because the promises of restoration are layered with meaning that will only be revealed as future events play out.

First, there is a remnant of Hebrews who returns to the land during the Persian empire and rebuild Jerusalem and the temple there. That story is told by Nehemiah and Ezra.

As part of the description of restoration, Amos states that “new wine will drip from the mountains.” For any follower of Jesus, this echoes the very words of Jesus when He said that His teaching was “new wine” that won’t work in “old wineskins.” Jesus predicted a bold new era in which Jerusalem would be destroyed and God’s kingdom would expand to include peoples of every tribe, nation, and language. Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D. and over the coming centuries the Hebrew people would be scattered among the nations.

Then, of course, we fast-forward to 1948, when the contemporary state of Israel was established by the British and the United Nations. From around the world, Hebrews returned from twenty centuries of exile to live in the very land where Amos prophesied almost three thousand years before.

And, that’s where I find myself sitting with wonder in the quiet this morning. What does this all mean? I’m not entirely sure. There are a lot of modern day would-be prophets who will confidently sell you their books and tell you exactly how the prophecies in the Great Story will play out. They’re always wrong. Jesus Himself said that He didn’t know the day and the hour of the events “yet to come.” Personally, I embrace that as an indicator I should humbly plead the same ignorance and rest comfortably being in Jesus’ good company.

And yet, the connection of what was, and what is leads me to believe that there is more to all of it than mere historical coincidence. It leads me to believe that everything, somehow, is playing out in relation to that what Jesus and the prophets envisioned as that which is yet to come. There is a Great Story being told. In the grand design that Paul described as “all things working together” I and my story are part of that Story.

How?

Someday I will know. That’s yet to come.

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