Hosea

I really, really love deep conversations about life and about God and about everything! Yesterday one of my real good friends, Katey, and I were driving to walmart and just started talking about life. It was so beautiful. We really didn't stop talking about God and life the whole night. Talking about God has just become the norm for me because my friends and I talk about Him almost all of the time. Shoot, I'm not complaining! God isn't a dead god who isn't involved in our lives. He is very much alive and I just love having a relationship with my savior! I am so in love with Christ and I pray that that will never ever change.
As Katey and I were talking she began to tell me about the book of Hosea. It was so beautiful to hear about it so I decided to read for myself this morning. HOLY SMOKES!!!! Homegirl wasn't joking when she said it was good stuff! At the beginning it is talking about Hosea's personal life and making it a parallel to Israel's relationship with God. I would take it even further to say that it is a parallel to each individual person on this earth's relationship with God. See, there is this woman who starts having sex with everyone for clothes and food and stuff and she leaves her husband for her lovers. But the thing is, her lovers never satisfy her. "She will chase her lovers, but not overtake them; yes, she will seek them, but not find them." She is looking for someone to just love her and to satisfy her needs and desires. She can't find that with these shallow men who just use her for sex. She finally gets so desperate that she returns to her husband. Her husband punishes her and exposes her sin to everyone. But then he "allures her" into the wilderness and speaks comfort to her. He allows her to sing like she did when she was a child because he desires her and wants her to be joyful and happy with him. Then she begins to call him her husband opposed to her master. He says, "I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and justice, in lovingkindness and mercy." Dude, homegirl is not worthy. She left her husband to sleep around and try to find love in other places. But he took her back. He broke her so that she would return to him. HOW BEAUTIFUL IS THIS?!
This is my story! This is me! I am the woman who leaves her first love to find love in other places. God is my first love. The world never will satisfy me and only left me with a huge void in my heart. God broke me and left me with nothing so that I can see that He is everything. My study Bible says, "When we turn away from God, He does not wait for us to come back to Him. He pursues us and desires that we be reunited with Him."God doesn't wait for us with open arms, He chases after us! Our creator desires us. Yes, He doesn't need us, but that's the beauty of it! The King of the universe doesn't need us at all but He wants us and desires us and simply wants to walk with us as in Genesis with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. How could we not be totally and completely in love with our Savior? I don't know how we could ever disobey Him, yet we still do. But He takes us back! I am so absolutely thankful for our loving savior and so thankful that I have friends to remind me of His steadfast love.