Hosea 2:6-9. While comparing his people to a wanton woman, God says he shall hem her in with thorn bushes so she cannot find her paths to her lovers. She will still seek them and pursue them but she will not be able to find them. Then she will say "I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me than now." She did not know that it had been him (God) who gave her the grain, wine, oil, and the silver and gold that she lavished on Ba'al. So he will take back the grain and the wine in their time and season and he will take away the wool and flax that covered her nakedness.

I believe that this is what God is doing to us now. He is slowly removing the things that we have always relied upon instead of him. I used to hope that it didn't have to get much worse, but now I am coming to realize that it is at the point where it is unstoppable. The only thing slowing it down are his love and protection of his faithful ones; his wanting more of us to turn back to him; and the fact that all must be taken away quote "in its time."

It hurts as we have our Ba'als stripped from us and we are unable to find our way back to them. We are being hemmed in by our God, but it is really to protect us from hurting ourselves further. And, even though it hurts, and will continue to hurt for some time, we will look back and be so glad when we see what God did for us to get us to what he has in store for us.

So take hope! He is our husband and our first love, he loves us and he wants us back, despite our idolatry and adultery. It is so much more than we deserve, but that is how God's love works.