‹ Back

Hosea 7:14 "They do not cry to me from the heart, but they wail upon their beds; for grain and wine they gash themselves, they rebel against me. "

 

There's a difference between truly loving God, and therefore crying to Him from our hearts when we are in need, knowing that as our loving Father He will care for us, and seeing God as a somewhat disinterested and fickle parent, who seemingly deprives us of what we want.

 

When we don't truly love God, but still somewhat believe in Him (or maybe are just hedging our bets), He can easily seem tyrannical. Why would He allow us to suffer unless He had it in for us? Why doesn't He just give us what we want now (like the prodigal son's inheritance)? But still, He's the one in charge, so we have to ask Him for help, wailing upon our beds about the unfairness of it all. Then we go out and "gash" ourselves to earn our grain (and maybe even wine).

 

We sacrifice our bodies, time, and talent for our income, but if we were truly in love with God, we would realize we do not have to do that. Work is a good thing, and something we have to do, but we are not supposed to be slaves to it nor to the money we earn from it, even when things are tight. If we love God the way we should, we would know that our trials are sanctifying us and that He will provide exactly what we need at the best time for us to have it. We would trust Him completely, and rely on Him rather than wailing at Him and then going out and giving ourselves completely to the world, allowing it to gash us and use us in order to give us its limited, and ultimately worthless, goods.

 

God created us out of love, and He created the grain we so struggle for in order to provide for us. Shouldn't we then go to Him, in love and thanksgiving, when we need more? Shouldn't we offer our bodies, time, and talent to Him, and let Him lead us to the best way to attain what we need? God is a lot gentler and more loving than the world, He won't gash us to provide us with our grain, His yoke is easy, His burden light.