My Wool, My Linen

"She said, 'I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.'" Hosea 2:5

Listen to how Gomer talks.

My wool. My linen. My olive oil. My drink.

Say it out loud a few times and you will hear the whole problem, because the problem is not in the nouns. The problem is in the pronoun. Every single one of those things was given to her. She did not spin the wool. She did not press the oil. Somebody provided all of it, and she has stood in the middle of that provision and called it hers, and then walked out the door to go find people who might give her more of it.

She has completely forgotten who provided in the first place. And having forgotten, she is now chasing after men who can give her exactly what she already had.

That is not a story about a woman in the eighth century before Christ. That is Tuesday.

How quickly do we forget who is really providing. How fast do we run after the next thing, the next relationship, the next status symbol, forgetting the faithful love that has been there the whole time, quietly stocking the shelves.

I do not think the forgetting is usually dramatic either. I do not think anybody wakes up and decides to be ungrateful. I think it happens the way a house gets cluttered, which is one thing at a time, none of them decisive.

And then one day you look around at a life that was handed to you, and everything in it has your name on it.

My health. My family. My gifts. My church. My work.

And God, who gave every bit of it, is standing in the doorway of a house he furnished, listening to a person he loves say the word my.