Hosea 1:2-10, 3:1-3, 6:1,
14:1-2
Hosea was a prophet who lived and ministered sometime between 753BC and 687BC. He was a mouthpiece for the Lord during a time when people didn't have Bible apps on phones in their pockets. God commanded him to marry a sexually immoral woman - a prostitute, an adulteress, a harlot. Probably not quite the match that Hosea was anticipating. He obeyed the Lord (willingly? bitterly? We don't really know.) He took Gomer as his wife and together they had three children, Jezreel, "No Mercy" and "Not My People". What names! It might've seemed to Hosea that he was being punished by the Lord with a harlot wife and children who weren't loved.
But God had another plan.
You see, Gomer's life was not about her. Neither was Hosea's about him. God wasn't concerned with their happiness or their prosperity. He wasn't bothered with their reputations, their social standing or their positions. Gomer and Hosea were put on this earth to illustrate the redemption story of God's people. Gomer and Hosea point us to Jesus's redemption of you and me. They were made for something bigger than themselves.
Hosea took Gomer for a wife but it wasn't long before she went back to her old way of life. Promiscuity seemed more alluring to her than faithfulness. Most men would've washed their hands of such a "dirty" woman, but Hosea pursued Gomer. My favorite words in the whole book of Hosea are found in chapter 3, verse 2 when Hosea says, "So I bought her". God told him to go get her back. She came at a price though and Hosea came ready to pay up. He bought her back from the pit she had chosen and redeemed her again.
The whole idea that God loves us so much that he would find us in the midst of our sin, the pit that we have deliberately chosen, is an idea I have a hard time wrapping my head around. But just as Hosea paid the price to redeem Gomer, Jesus Christ has redeemed us on the cross by paying the price with his own blood. There's nothing good in you or me that makes us worthy of such redemption and that's the beauty of it. It's a gift. Free. We can't earn it and we don't deserve it. Gomer didn't deserve it, but Hosea bought her back. You don't deserve it but Jesus bought you back.
Hosea 6:1 says,
Come, let us return to the LORD; for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.
The pit that you may find yourself in is not one that is too far to receive the gift of redemption. There's nothing too bad, nothing too terrible that God will not redeem. He gave his only son, Jesus, so that he could pay the price for you, even while you were still in that pit. Don't stay torn and struck down. Turn to him and he promises to heal you and bind you up. What a precious promise!
And keep in mind that your story is not about you. It's all about Him and His redeeming love.
