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.
Hosea 6:1 (ESV)
I sometimes feel as though God is so very distant from me. As though there is this great chasm between us that keeps us separated. When these times are present in my life I tend to ask God why he has abandoned me or why he has drawn away from me. The promise of the Bible is that God will never leave me nor forsake me. He has not only given me his Spirit as a guarantee, but his Spirit is my companion and has taken up residence in my heart. He abides with me at all times. So why do I feel as though There is a great distance in our communion and fellowship? Hosea 6:1 tells me, “return to the Lord.” The truth is that the Lord has in no way abandoned me but I on the other hand have abandoned him. I have wandered. I have hidden. I have even tried to flee the presence of the Lord. Yet, just like Jonah, I am learning that I can no more flee the presence of the Lord than I can stop the earth from spinning on its axis. No, I need to heed the call of Hosea and return to the Lord.
The question then arises in my heart of why do I wander, hide, and flee from the Lord? The answer is simply that I desire sin more than I desire my God at times. I lose myself in idolatry. Or as Hosea reminds the people in Chapter 5, I get lost in the whoredom of idol worship. I deceive myself into believing that my fleshly desires are telling the truth and will provide me with the satisfaction that they promise, even though they never do. They only provide emptiness and isolation. In my waywardness and hardness of heart, I am willing to believe those lies and begin to hide and turn away from my God. But the Lord does not leave me there.
God, my Father, woos me back and pursues my heart to draw me back to himself. How does he do this? Sometimes it is through the outpouring of blessings and gifts in my life to remind me of what is available to me in Christ. Other times, he tears me and strikes me down in his love. I say in his love because this tearing down is not done in anger or with malice but it is always performed from a place of complete and absolute love. In my blindness and hiding, I often do not see the consequences of the path that I am traveling. The path of sin leads only toward a place of destruction and pain. It is a dire place to be and the Lord wants to reveal this urgency to me through suffering. All with the purpose of having me return to him.
When I come to my senses and my sight is returned, I can see the depth of my sin and lostness. I can see the distance I have put between me and my Savior. I can see the beautiful grace and mercy of God waiting for me in the arms of my Savior. The One who tore me in love will heal me. The One who struck me down in love will bind me. This is the severity of sin in my life that I need to fully understand. Sin is not a game or a nuisance in my life. Sin is a monster that only wants to kill and destroy everything around and in me. Sin is not an annoyance it is a destroyer. Until I see sin in my life the way God does, I will continue to believe the lies and find myself wandering over and over again.
What I need is the full grace of God in my heart to reveal the utter darkness that I let linger. I keep it there on a shelf at times and bring it out when I am weak and mindless. I need to be as vigilant about killing sin in my heart as the Lord is about killing sin in my heart. There is no middle ground in this war. I do not fight with the things of this world. This is a spiritual fight to the death. There will be a lot of wounds and suffering in this fight. There will be battles lost and there will be times of despair but the Lord is reigning and He has already won the victory over sin and death. In Christ I am victorious. So, I keep fighting and striving against sin and the enemy. I keep using the spiritual weapons of humility and grace. I return again and again to my Savior for healing and strength. I put all of my trust and obedience in the goodness of God. His unbound love for me will always cover and protect me. In His love, I find peace and hope.