Today’s Scripture Reading (January
11, 2020): Hosea 2 & 3
“Never take
anything for granted...we never seem to realize what we have until it is no
longer ours then it becomes the only thing we want.” The quote is unattributed, and yet
we all know the truth of it. We don’t know what we have until we have lost it.
The phrase, taken for granted, is a strange one. It means that we assume
something is true without questioning it. It seems to originate in an era where
the sovereign had to grant every right possessed by the masses. There would
come a time when people would assume that certain rights had been granted to
them without asking for the king’s permission. These rights would be taken for or
as granted. But if you were wrong about the rights you had assumed, then there
would be a penalty to pay.
During the
days of Hosea, Israel assumed much. They took for granted the idea of a king
and his power over them, but more than that, they believed that whether the
King was good or bad, that he would have the interests of the nation and the
people at the forefront of his mind. They assumed that there would be places to
worship, and even though they often seemed to ignore him, they understood that
the God of Israel would always reign in Jerusalem. And they also assumed that
there would always be a spiritual reality to everyday life even if that
spiritual reality went against the dictates of their God.
Hosea wanted
them to realize a different reality. The truth was that the disobedience of
Israel was about to carry them down a path that they could not imagine. It would
be a time of significant loss of some of the things that the nation took for
granted. First, it would be a time when the King would reign a long way away
for their land. And on that day, the king who reigned over them would not care
what was best for Israel or her people. He would take from both the land and
the people without any thought of giving back. Israel would exist without a
king or a prince.
On that day,
the gods that the nation followed, even the false ones, would be taken away
from them. The country would be left with gods that they did not know, and gods
that did not know them. On that day, the people would be unable to sacrifice in
either Jerusalem or in the false places that the kings had set up for that use.
And on that
day, the people would pray, but God would no longer hear the prayers of the
people. They would wander without direction and without heritage. Everything
that people assumed was true would be removed, and, as a result, the people
would be lost. It didn’t have to be that way, but according to Hosea, that was
the path that they had chosen. Now was the time that the nation needed to be
concerned about all that it had taken for granted. Because, soon, those very
things would be removed.
Tomorrow’s
Scripture Reading: Hosea 4
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