I Will Allure Her

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

Allure is not a word we use much, and when we do we usually mean something a little dishonest. A lure is what you put on a hook.

That is not this.

The allurement here is not to trick. It is a persuasion that radically suggests a different option than the one we are living. It says, would you be willing to consider something else. Would you be willing to see my goodness as greater than whatever it is you love more than me.

And notice the mechanism, because it is the strangest part of the verse. He does not corner her. He does not expose her. He brings her into the wilderness and speaks tenderly.

Faithful love never forces itself on anybody.

Think of the two on the Emmaus road. They are walking away from Jerusalem, away from their group, away from everything, and they are doing it after two separate testimonies came back and told them the tomb was empty. They heard the women. They sent the men. And they walked away anyway.

And Jesus comes alongside them and hides their eyes and just walks.

He had every reason to boast. He had just defeated death. He could have said, what is wrong with you, you had two witnesses. Instead he listens. He asks questions. He opens the Scriptures and shows them how the whole thing has been pointing at him the entire time, and he lets them not know it is him.

He never once pushes them to see him.

He walks in the direction they are already going.

I have wondered whether he does that all the way. Whether he walks the ones who are turning away as far as they will go, still speaking tenderly, still offering the other option, right up to the gate.

Their hearts burned first. The recognition came second.

He is not going to force you.

He is going to walk with you until something burns.

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.