Day 103

Have you ever had to leave someone that you really love, when you did not want to? One year, while I was in college, my parents came up to visit me for my birthday. It was a really strange birthday for me, I knew I was an adult but felt so scared and apprehensive about the future. I had to have been either 22 or 23. Whatever the case, it was Sunday and my family had to leave. My dad had work on Monday, and they really could not afford to just stay. His income was helping keep me in school. But the thought of being lonely on my birthday was eating me up inside. One of my brothers was actually attending school with me during that time. He tried to be around, but he was younger than I and did not really comprehend the angst that churned in my soul. All I knew was that I wanted, no, I needed my family to stay with me. I began crying and latched on the leg of my father, begging him not to go, but he had to, so he did. Of course, this memory triggered an event that occurred in the Bible, some 2000 years ago. So, let’s talk about it.

No one outside of her immediate family ever treated her with respect. She had a very soiled reputation. Her name was the one you’d find in the bathroom stalls with the tagline “call if you want a good time.” Once she thought that someone loved her, and wanted her for her, but it turned out to be a terrible rouse. Before the sun had come up, after he had had his fun, footsteps flooded the room where she lay. She looked, but she could not find him anywhere, she was alone, he had left her. Who else but he knew about their secret location? Could she have been followed? Mary ran all these thoughts in her head, as she was grappling for her clothes over the sea of screaming men. Before she knew it, she was being dragged out of the bedroom, through the main room and right out the front door. Dust flew all around her, and she could barely see through the crowd. She overheard them speaking about what would “He” say, and they “Got Him now!” She knew that her crime of passion’s penalty in her community, in her culture, was death by stoning. Tears began to well in her eyes, but she refused to give these men the satisfaction to see her beg for her life. She recognized some of their voices, they too had tasted her nectar, but she was the one being dragged out of bed while it was still dark. Now the sun had begun to peak over the horizon, she could see through the crowd just enough to make out where she was going, the Temple.

With one collective force, she was shoved towards the center of the outer court. There were those around a Man who stood up when she landed on the ground. She heard the gasp and the sounds of footsteps surround her. She coward in the fetal position, she knew that this was her last few moments on earth. Tears now freely streamed down her face, all she wanted was to be held, to be known, to be loved. Flashes of her life danced in her head, and pictures of her family swam in and out of her mind. How would they react when they found out that this is how their sister had died. Being the youngest, she would be the one to bring the ultimate shame to her family. She barely realized that the Man was saying something, would He be first to cast the stone? Was He talking to her? He was talking to her!

“Woman, where are those who accuse you?” His voice was so kind, and as she blinked back the tears and dust from her face, she knew she had seen Him before. She looked around, moments ago she had seen a gallery of dusty sandals with just as dust filled feet, now she saw no one, but Him. Would He be the One to condemn her? “No, one Lord?” She wasn’t sure, how she should answer. “Correct. No one is going to harm you today.” He gave her His hand and helped her stand up. He wrapped the mangled sheet around her and looked her in her face, into her eyes. She felt like He could read everything she had ever done, but there was no judgment in His eyes, only compassion. Her heart was pounding so loud she could hear it between her ears. She had never felt like this before, she had never felt known, loved, accepted. He was saying something, “You don’t have to live like this anymore. You’re free, no one is going to hurt you. Go, and sin no more.”

You can read the story that I just modernized for you in the book of John 8:1-11. Jesus was that Man who showed such compassion and grace to a woman who had been used as a ploy to try and destroy Him. Instead, He restored her. A week before He died, Jesus had been invited to a dinner party in His honor. He had healed a very well known man from the crippling disease of leprosy. During the dinner, this same woman would have been dead without His intervention, who under the law deserved the due punishment, was saved by Him. She came and anointed His head and His feet as a way to showcase her love for Him. She did not care who was there, or who was watching, all she knew, was that she had to show Him how much she loved him and appreciated Him for saving her life. As the aroma of the magnificent and expensive perfume filled the air, people began to take notice and were talking about her again. She was used to people looking down at her and talking about her, but she did not care.

Jesus stopped the gossip and the crowd. “What she is doing for me, none of you have even thought of. I came here to your house, and did you even offer me the customary washings? Or how about you, your concern is for the poor? You will have them always with you, but soon, you will not have me.” He paused, then said “Leave her alone. Wherever this gospel is preached, her story and what she has done will also be told, throughout the entire world.” You can read this part of the story in Matthew 26:6-13.

And it is fitting that when He was on the road to Golgatha, she was there along with His mother. And when He died, she was there to help wrap His body. And on Sunday morning when He resurrected, He waited for her before going to see His Father, because He knew how heartbroken she would be. He told her that He had to leave her, she clung to Him, He told her not to cling to Him because He was going to His Father, and Her Father. Then He gave her a mission: Go and tell everyone, that I AM risen!” John 20:11-18. And so goes the story of the first evangelist.

Now, 2000 years later. Jesus tells to Go and tell everyone, that I AM risen!” AND that He is coming again! The One, who died to take our place, when the law said that we deserved death, He looked at us with compassion, love, and acceptance and said “You no longer need to live a life of sin and shame. Go and sin no more. Go and live a full life. Go and tell the world your story.”

 

Day 100

When I started this journey, I never even thought of getting to this day! Can you believe it? This is our 100th post on My Relationship with Him! This is the 100th day of 2020 and it is nothing like what I thought it would be. My relationship with God has been tested and tried, I’ve been unfaithful, and then returned to Him, because He never walked away from me. And of course, this reminds me of a relationship, a story if you may, in the Bible about a man named Hosea.

Hosea was a prophet in Isreal and is the first of the “Minor” prophets. The name Hebrew name is Hoshea which is the shortened form of the Hebrew phrase: Hosha’eyah, which means Yahweh has saved. And that’s really the entire Bible summed up in one word: Hosha’eyah. Interestingly enough, the Hebrew name of Jesus is Yeshua, which means, Savior. And the book of Hosea is God showing His ever-persistent love amongst a nation who remained unfaithful to Him. Before we continue with Hosea’s story, how can one be “unfaithful” to God?

If you read through the book of Judges, those stories really set the foundation for Israel’s relationship with God for the remainder of their time as a nation up to when they had a king, and then it continued to go downhill from there. But He continued to show and exemplify love towards them. He was angry and hurt by their continuous unfaithfulness towards Him, and He let them know that it hurt when they refused to: divide your bread with the hungry. And bring the homeless poor into the house; When you see the naked, that you cover him, And not to hide yourself from [the needs of] your own flesh and blood?” Isaiah 58:7.

If that was their dealing with those who they could see, could you imagine how they dealt with the One that they could not see? Well, we don’t have to imagine the Bible tells us: And He said to me, “Go in and see the wicked, repulsive acts that they are committing here.” So I entered and looked, and saw every kind of creeping things and beasts and loathsome things, and all the idols of the house of Israel, carved all around on the wall. Standing before these [images] were seventy elders of the house of Israel…each man with his censer in his hand and a thick and fragrant cloud of incense was rising [as they prayed to these gods]. Then He said to me, “…do you see what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, each man in his [secret] room of carved images? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us…“Yet again you will see even greater repulsive acts which they are committing.” So He brought me to the inner court of the Lord’s house. And behold, at the entrance to the temple of the Lord, between the porch (vestibule, portico) and the [bronze] altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs to the temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east; and they were bowing down toward the east and worshiping the sun. He said to me, “Do you see this, son of man? Is it too slight a thing for the house of Judah to commit the repulsive acts which they have committed here, that they have filled the land with violence and repeatedly provoked Me to anger?” Ezekiel 8:9-12, 16,17.

If you were to read the entire chapter (Here) you would see that the language that God uses is likened unto the jealousy of a husband towards His wife if she was unfaithful to Him. So here enters our protagonist, Hosea. God tells him to marry a woman who has a reputation for sleeping around on her men: When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to him, “Go, take for yourself a wife of prostitution and have children of [her] prostitution; for the land commits great acts of prostitution by not following the Lord.” Hosea 2:2. I honestly am not sure how I would feel if that was the calling that God placed on my life. Can you imagine the conversation that Hosea and God must have had? God told Jonah to preach the gospel to his enemies, and he hopped on a boat to get away from God’s call. But the Bible does not tell us that Hosea disobeyed. Instead, the very next verse said he went and married Gomer.

The next few chapters are the interwoven stories of Hosea and Gomer in parallel to God and Isreal. Gomer is not faithful to Hosea, and she goes and sleeps with other men, and she returns pregnant. God tells Hosea, not only to name the child (Loammi) that isn’t his but to use this as an example to all of Isreal that God will not be called their God and they will not be His people if this is the life that they are choosing. Their very act of worshiping other “gods” which the Bible clearly states were demons: They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God, to gods they had not known before, to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors had never feared.” Deuteronomy 32:17. These “sacrifices” lead to child killings and virgin killings to appease these demons. And God was sick of it! He compares Isreal to a prostitute: For their mother has played the prostitute; She who conceived them has acted shamefully, For she said, ‘I will pursue my lovers Who give me my food and my water, My wool and my flax, my oil and my [refreshing] drinks.’  “Therefore, behold, I [the Lord God] will hedge up her way with thorns…I will build a wall against her [shutting off her way] so that she cannot find her paths.” Hosea 2:5,6.

Here God shines the light on the darkness of the nation of Israel claiming that all the blessings that they received they said came from these demons that they worshipped in place of the One who called them to be a nation. And these demons needed the lives of innocent children to satisfy their thirst in order to give them these blessings. And God clears it up by stating: “For she (Israel) has not noticed nor understood nor realized that it was I [the Lord God] who gave her the grain and the new wine and the oil,
And lavished on her silver and gold” Hosea 2:8.

What I find amazing, is that when Gomer, Hosea’s wife runs away after other lovers, she ends up running after a guy who, after he uses her body, sells her into slavery. By now it’s been a while since Hosea has seen his wife, he’s raising the children she’s born by himself, even the ones that aren’t his. He’s been the talk of the town and is fighting to just keep his head up. Then one day, God speaks to him again: Then the Lord said to me, “Go again, love a woman (Gomer) who is beloved by her husband and yet is an adulteress, even as the Lord loves the children of Israel, though they turn to other gods and love the raisin cakes [used in the feasts in pagan worship].” So I bought her for myself for fifteen pieces of silver and a homer and a half of barley [the price of a common slave]. And I said to her, “You shall stay with me for many days. You shall not play the prostitute nor shall you have a man; so I will also be toward you…” Hosea 3:1-3.

And that’s where Hosea’s story ends. He buys his wife back from the slave market and tells her that she is worth more to him than any other woman and that she belongs to him and only him. I can’t imagine being that woman standing exposed for all to see me as the men gawk at my body, and the auctioneer asks who will buy me for a good time. And no one is willing to step up and claim me because they know where I’ve been. So standing there, naked, head hanging low, tears streaming down my face, only to hear the voice of One so familiar: I will pay for her, I will buy her.” And the auctioneer asking Him, what are you willing to pay for her, and Him saying, “My life, I’ll give My life for hers.”

Here’s to 100 posts, and a million more moments with Him.