Bible Stories for the Young
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Hosea was another YAHWEH-loving prophet who spoke God’s Words to the people of Israel during the time of King Jeroboam (the second one). But the people kept disobeying God! Even though God loved them very much, they did not love God back.
To love God means you obey Him. To love God means you say, “Oh, Yes!” to Him! To love God means you want to get close, close, closer to Him!
But the people would NOT obey Him. They kept saying, “No! No! No!” to God. And they wanted to be far, far, far away from God.
How terrible!!
God wanted Hosea to know how He felt, so one day God spoke to Hosea.
“Hosea!”
“Yes, God?” Hosea said.
“Hosea, the people I have picked to be Mine, they do not love Me because they do not obey Me. They want to be far, far, far away from Me. They tell Me ‘no, no, no!’ This makes Me very sad.
“I want you to understand how I feel about this so that when you talk to the people for Me, you can help them understand. I want you to marry a woman who does not love you. This will help you feel the same as I feel. She will want to be far, far, far away from you. She will not obey you. She will say, ‘no, no, no!’ to you. But! I want you to love her anyway, and never stop loving her.”
This was a very difficult thing for Hosea to understand! But do you know what he said? He said, “Yes, God! This will hurt. This will make me so sad. But I know YOU hurt and I know YOU are sad about this. Because I love You, I will obey You!”
So Hosea married a woman named Gomer. And just like God said, even though Hosea showed his love to Gomer, Gomer did not love Hosea.
Hosea tried to be close, close, close to Gomer. But Gomer tried to be far, far, far away from Hosea.
She did not obey him. And she told him “no” all the time.
But Hosea obeyed God and when Gomer said “no!” and ran far away from Hosea, Hosea went and found Gomer and brought her back close again.
Hosea kept bringing her back close and kept loving her and giving her gifts, even though Gomer would throw the gifts away.
Now Hosea knew how God felt! It hurt. When you love someone so much, but they don’t love you back, it hurts… bad.
Even though it was a sad time for God and for Hosea, God told Hosea that ONE DAY things would change. One day God would have People — a Wife — who would love and obey Him and want to be closer, closer, closer to Him (as close as you can get!). These People, this Wife, would not just call God “my boss,” but would call God, “my love.” And then, God would be able to love on her just the way He wanted with HIS BIG LOVE — singing to her, kissing her on the cheek and giving her big forever hugs.
One day you can be a part of the Lady who wants to be close, close, close to Him, and who will never run away looking for other things to love. There will be a People like that, who will give to God the same unfailing Love that He has expressed to her time and time and time again.
Ohhhh, YES!
