It's a Two Way Street

As I continue reading through Hosea I keep coming across some very interesting passages. The thing I’ve always been amazed at by the Bible is that I can read the same passage multiple times and come away with different impressions, case in point right here. I wrote about the comparison made between God and a pained lover, but here are a few more verses to clarify that and also explain the reasoning behind God’s judgment. 5:15 says “Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face in their misery they will earnestly seek me.” 6:6 says “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.” And finally 7:13 “I long to redeem them but they speak lies against me. They do not cry out to me from their hearts.” So why the scripture, well, doesn’t it sound similar to something someone who has been cheated on would say? Or maybe a parent whose child left them never to come back? You always hear the “All I want is for them to come back…” well, God is the same way. A lot of the time it seems people think of God as some sort of evil puppet master rooting against them, well, clearly seen here God is rooting for us, not against us. God wants us to succeed, He doesn’t want us to leave Him or worse, end up in eternal separation from Him. A common question is “how can a loving God send people to hell?” Well, God doesn’t really send people to hell; I don’t really think He would want to. C.S. Lewis (yeah, him again) once wrote something along the lines of how our eternal outcomes aren’t decided at one point, but really a culmination of many decisions. The attitude of today could affect where I am in ten years ultimately deciding where I end up. If anything God wants us more than we could ever know, it’s just up to us to want Him back.