The Toggling Heart of God - Reflections from Hosea (#17)

"How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

How can I hand you over, O Israel?

My heart recoils within me;

My compassion grows warm and tender"

(Hosea 11:8)

"Ephraim has given bitter provocation;

so his Lord will leave his bloodguilt on him

and will repay him for his disgraceful deeds...

They shall be like the chaff that swirls from the threshing floor

or like smoke from a window."

(Hosea 12:14, 13:3)

I wonder if Hosea ever said to God, "Uh...but didn't you say this just the other day?  Why are you asking me now to say that?"

When it comes to His people, God's heart flips and flops. 

On one day, He simply cannot put up with their willful, rebellious, disgraceful living, resolving again to let the hammer fall.  It will not be pretty (the Assyrian assault would be horrific), but God had concluded that they asked for it.

On another day, God's heart grows warm with compassion.  He's been Ephraim's God for too long.  His patience suffered long, but God had hung in there.  "My heart recoils within Me."  

It's like processing what to do about a prodigal with a set of parents in one Person - a father ready for the toughness of discipline to do what only discipline can do, a mother who can hardly bear to see her child suffer.

UNDERSTANDING GOD'S HEART

I'm reminded of Peter's words.  "The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise (that the Day of the Lord will come), but is patient toward you...not willing (eager)  that any should perish, but that all come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

Then 3:10..."But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed."

When the day of patience ends, no one can say that they didn't have enough time to get it right with God.  For more days than were warranted, God's heart (it seems) toggles back and forth until...

...well, until the day of discipline must arrive.

In that latter day, the Father's patient love will be fully known.  So will the works done on the earth by men and women who either took advantage of grace, or gambled with it.

Serious stuff...