Tuesday, April 17, 2018
God is
speaking:
Then I will
return to my place until they admit their guilt and turn to me. For as soon as trouble comes, they will
earnestly search for me.”
God’s people
respond from the wood shed:
“Come, let
us return to the Lord. He has torn us to
pieces; now he will heal us. He has
injured us; now he will bandage our wounds.
In just a short time he will restore us, so that we may live in his
presence. Oh, that we might know
the Lord! Let us press on to know
him. He will respond to us as surely as
the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.” Hosea 5:15-6:3(NLT)
The wood
shed evokes images of an era fading from view. There was a time in American culture when,
particularly on family farms, and other rural places, if the child had been
disobedient the parent would utter the decree:
I’ll be in the wood shed; you meet me there. That was the dreaded phrase announcing the
impending punishment of a whipping for wrong-doing.
In the 21st
century most writers of parenting materials would shudder and shriek over the supposedly
barbaric practice of even telling Johnny he has done wrong, much less assaulting
Johnny’s body with a switch, belt or paddle.
I must admit I get a little weary of hearing how Johnny’s psyche will
get warped if he gets punished for behavior that is deemed wrong by the
parent. In my personal experience I do
not believe punishment warped my mental state (though sometimes it did warp the
way I sat down for a week)!
Hosea’s prophecy
was all about the word of sanity from the woodshed, Israel’s response to the
discipline of God. To say Israel had been
unfaithful is to understate their condition by a mile. For a nation founded on allegiance to God’s
ways, falling into worshipping other gods, going after power, materialism, and
even child-sacrifice, while still claiming their heritage as God’s very special
chosen people…well that was laughable.
That would have
been like America still claiming to be a Christian nation.
The history of
Israel and the USA are no different than the history of humanity. We are loved by God…we accept that love…and
we reject living like we’re loved…and we wind up in the woodshed; there is
little under the sun that is new.
Hosea crafted the
right words for the collective mouth of Israel’s heart…let us return to the Lord. Those are still the right words for any
nation; those are still the right words for any person. It is true we can (in this life) never turn
off the sin meter; we all manage to slip off the path, or directly step over
the line against God’s standard. Our
daily priority, then has to be repentance, confession, and diligently returning
to the Lord.
This is what Paul
meant when he wrote:
I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die
daily. 1 Corinthians
15:31(KJV)
This is the life
of those who would truly follow Jesus as a disciple, putting to death that
which stands in the way of your walk with Him.
For You Today
If you’re familiar
with the wood shed as a corrective your parent exercised with you, and changed
your life from the wrong path to the right one…remember there is a spiritual
wood shed that is connected to the straight and narrow path which leads to
eternal life.
It’s not easy to
die daily…but it’s the only way to live!
