Until Something Burns

"Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her." (Hosea 2:14)

Allure is a suspicious word to us. We think of a lure, the thing you hide a hook inside. This is the opposite. The alluring here is not a trick but a persuasion, an offer held out to a wandering heart. Would you be willing to consider another way. Would you be willing to see my goodness as greater than the thing you have loved more than me. And notice how God does it, because it is the strangest part of the verse. He does not corner her. He does not expose her in the street. He draws her out into the wilderness and speaks tenderly. Faithful love never forces itself on anyone.

Think of the two walking to Emmaus, away from Jerusalem, away from everyone, and doing it after the reports had already come back that the tomb was empty. They had heard the witnesses and walked away anyway. And Jesus comes alongside, keeps their eyes from knowing him, and simply walks. He had just defeated death. He had every reason to correct them on the spot. Instead he asks questions, he listens, he opens the Scriptures and shows how the whole story had been pointing to him the entire way, and he lets them not yet know that it is him. He walks in the direction they are already going.

He may do that further than we think, walking the ones who are turning away as far as they will go, still speaking tenderly, still holding out the other road, right up to the gate. Their hearts burned first. The recognition came second. So he will not seize you and he will not shame you. He will walk beside you until something in you begins to burn.