Hosea 2

As my friends and I go through this study of the Minor Prophets this summer, I hope to share some of the nuggets of truth, encouragement and Love that I glean throughout the passages. I may not find something in every chapter, but I anticipate God's Spirit being faithful to teach us a lot as we delve into His Word together.

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"For she does not know that it was I who gave her the grain,

the new wine and the oil,

And lavished on her silver and gold,

Which they used for Baal." (Hosea 2:8, NASB)

My New American Standard Bible tells me that "Baal" meant lord, owner, possessor or husband. He was the Canaanite god of fertility and the Israelites had forsaken Yahweh to follow this foreign god. To be truthful, God calls it "prostituting", "harlotry" and even "whoring". A wrote a little about this after we started our study last week, so I won't belabor the point.

What strikes me in this one small verse is that just as the author of Ecclesiastes states, there is nothing new under the sun...thousands of years after God prompted Hosea to write His Words to Israel, we still receive everything we have from Him and yet lavish so much of what He gives us on our idols.

No guilt here...but just take a few moments to let that sink in.

I'll try to put it into my Americanized version so that this can hit me right where it needs to: God provides a job, an income, another day and even another breath to serve Him and accomplish His purposes...and what do I turn around and pay homage to by using those gifts??

Is He at the forefront of every expenditure I make?

Do I even pause to ask if this is something I need or is it just fueling an addiction...an idol?

Is what I'm buying or even doing with my time glorifying Him or is it being used to glorify myself or another idol I've placed in His path?

I know...tough questions...and not ones that I like to ask. So what do I do with the answers to these questions? I know for myself, I'm asking Him to show me what exactly are the idols in my life. I'm guessing the second step will be to ask Him to help me get rid of them. 

I have to confess that I've been a little more than surprised by the things He's drawing my attention to that I've placed before Him. Honestly...they are very subtle. But just like the idol that provokes jealousy I can 'reverse engineer my emotions' and whatever keeps me afraid, jealous, vengeful or in a cycle of self-pity...those are precisely the idols I've placed before God.

This is not pretty. But it is work that needs to be done. God is cleaning house and I'm okay with that because I know the space He creates can be filled with more of Him!