God calls his people back to him

Lately my devotional has been a deep dive into the lives and prophecies of the minor prophets.  One of the minor prophets is Hosea. Hosea is a book in the Bible that describes God’s heart for his people.  Even though the nation had been unfaithful to the Lord, often being compared to an unfaithful wife, God continues to love and care for the people of Israel.  Granted, the Israelites were going to be punished because of their unfaithfulness, but after the Israelites were punished, God was going to call his people back to himself.  This is something that God has done multiple other times throughout the Bible, and this is exactly something that God wants to do in our own personal lives.  

Hosea 2:19-20, “I will betroth you to me forever;  I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord.” This was a verse that God professes to Hosea after he tells him everything that is going to happen with the Isrealites.  God desires to bretroth his people in righteousness, justice, love, and compassion. This sounds amazing. Even though his people at this particular moment in the Bible were falling away from him, he was looking forward to the future when he would call his people back to him.  This definitely shows God’s complete and whole love for his people, and that it is incredibly hurtful to him when his people fall away. This should also show us how complete and whole God’s love is for us, you and me. He wants to betroth you, yes you, wherever you are, in justice, love compassion, and faithfulness.  

Currently, it is Easter weekend.  This means the celebration of when Jesus died on the cross and then resurrected back to life.  God saw the world and saw all the evilness, sin, hurt, and weariness, and knew that he had to find a way to fix the situation. Jesus died on the cross for our sins because we could not make it to heaven without his death and resurrection.  Because we could not save ourselves, God found a different way to call us back to him. Easter is the ultimate weekend when God called his people back to him, but it is definitely not the most current example. God is constantly doing that with us in our own lives.  There are moments when we feel that we have lost the way to the Lord. There are moments of great sadness in our lives when we may feel as though we are not in God’s graces anymore. In all of those situations, God does indeed, have a plan.  

Take, for example, the entire world that is now having a problem in regard to COVID-19. There is a lot of fear and anxiety during this time.  We don’t know how long we will be in social distancing, how many lives COVID-19 will take before it is fully gone, how many jobs will be lost, what our economy will do after this, or if our medical health system will ever go back to normal.  These are very valid questions and concerns that people have. We have never in our lives experienced anything like this on such a global scale.  

However, the Lord is definitely using this time to gather people closer to him.  How do I know this? Because, where there are areas with high technology advances, churches, Bible studies, youth organizations, and multiple other groups are finding the best way to connect online.  Now, this may actually sound like the opposite of growing closer, because now people are not able to meet face to face but rather only through a computer screen. However, this has just reminded people that meeting together to talk about the Bible is such an important piece to their own lives.  We have discovered how that weekly session that at one time may have felt like another thing on our schedule, or another hour we could be resting is completely essential for our spiritual and mental health. I have seen more posts on Facebook in regard to faith, Christianity, and church meetings than I ever did before COVID-19.  That is something to celebrate. When we return to our normal church settings, a hope should be that we adore the time that we can spend with others in the church.  

This time has also, with our increased anxiety and fear, meant that people feel they need to rely on the Lord for their protection, solitude, comfort, and strength.  We realize more and more that the more plans we make, the more things we do aren’t going to happen without the will of the Lord. He is ultimately the one that will make the decisions and has his plan in COVID-19. For example, I had plans to finish out a normal first year of teaching. What I didn’t know at the beginning of the year was that he was going to teach me how to be incredibly flexible and learn to teach online.  We don’t know the plan, but we also, sadly, aren’t supposed to at this time. This blind trust and faith is the thing that will see us through. This time shows that we can’t have blind trust in our medical field, schools, or the stock market because they are not the ultimate thing that will keep the control.  

The world is experiencing a pandemic.  We are in a time of great sorrow, stress, heartache, and destruction.  I realize that I am incredibly blessed during this time, where I and my family have stayed healthy, I can work from home and still receive payments, as well as internet and entertainment.  I know that there are so many people who have lost jobs, lost paychecks, lost a place to live, and even family member’s lives due at least in part to this pandemic. However, God continues to have a plan.  At the end of this, we may experience the greatest joy. There may be more love for a neighbor because we realized how much we enjoyed meeting together. There may be more care for the elderly and immune compromised because we realize how vulnerable they can be.  There may be more joy walking into a job everyday because we missed doing our job and the co-workers around us.   

The world looks really, really, really dark right now, the darkest I have ever seen. However, this is not the first time the world has experienced darkness before. Back again to the first Easter Sunday, the people had just watched Jesus, the Savior of the world die on the cross.  For some, this was their best friend and someone they really connected with, die. For others, they were discouraged because they thought he was going to save them from destruction. (He was, but just in a different way, not in a way they were expecting). The world had two days where God was essentially dead.  The world was in a dark place, but then Jesus resurrected from the grave, moved the rock, and brought hope and joy to his people on Easter Sunday. We are living in a really long Black Friday, but I know that we have a beautiful Easter Sunday that is on the horizon.