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.

Raisin Cakes

"Go again, love a woman who is loved by another man and is an adulteress, even as the LORD loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love cakes of raisins." Hosea 3:1

Raisin cakes.

It seems like a strange detail to put in a verse about spiritual adultery, and the first time it catches you it almost sounds funny. Is God suddenly against baked goods?

No. In that culture raisin cakes were a status symbol. They were the imported thing, the expensive thing, the thing you set out on the table when you wanted the neighbors to know you were doing well. They were the Mercedes in the driveway. They were the newest phone on the table at lunch, screen up, so it can be seen.

And God says, they turn to other gods, and they love the cakes of raisins.

He puts those two things in the same sentence on purpose.

We want the idol to be dramatic. We want it to be a carved thing on a shelf, something obviously wicked, something we would never do. And God says no. Sometimes the thing that pulls a heart away from me is not evil at all. It is nice. It is a small luxury. It is a signal. It is the raisin cake.

That is what makes it dangerous. Nobody repents of dessert.

The idol is almost never the thing itself. It is what the thing tells you about yourself. It is the story the raisin cake tells about the person who can afford it, and that story is very quiet, and it does not feel like worship, and it is worship.

And here is the terrible mercy in the verse. God does not stop loving her over it. He says go again. Love a woman who is loved by another man.

He knows exactly what she left him for.

He knows it was raisin cakes.

He sends the prophet anyway.