Go, Marry Her

"When the LORD first spoke through Hosea, the LORD said to Hosea, 'Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom.'" Hosea 1:2

God tells Moses to go free the captives. God tells Abraham to leave and go to a land I will show you.

And then God comes to Hosea.

I want you to marry a prostitute.

I think I would have asked for more time to pray that one through. I think I would have gone back and said, Lord, I want to make sure I heard you, because there is nothing holy about what I think you just said. And he says, yes, Hosea. She is a prostitute. Her name is Gomer.

Not Mary. Not Sarah. Gomer.

Imagine the whispers at the market. Did you hear about Hosea, the prophet, the man of God? He is getting married. And you will never believe who.

But here is what is incredible about it. God is not asking Hosea to make a strange life decision. God is asking Hosea to live out a prophecy. Every painful moment, every whisper behind his back, every betrayal that is coming, all of it is going to paint a picture. A living picture of how God feels about his people. Of how much he loves them, even when they run.

So they marry. They have three children. Life is happening.

And then one morning Hosea wakes up and she is gone. He searches the house. He checks the yard. He walks up and down the street. Nothing.

And now the prophet is a single father with three children, and if you have ever been a single parent you know the days are hard and the nights are worse. And the whispers around town are not helping. I knew it would not work. What was he thinking.

We read Hosea as a book about Israel, and it is. But God did not send Israel a memo. He sent them a man, with a wrecked house and a broken heart, and he said, look at him. That is me.

Before you ever read a word about your idols, read that.

The God you left is not indifferent about it.