Once upon a time there was a man who fell in love with a woman who had been in many other relationships. They were together for a while and then she left him and went back to her old life and old ways which was being a prostitute. She got into trouble and chased after the wrong things but never was really satisfied like she was when she was with her husband. She said to herself one day, “I will go and return to my husband because it was better for me then than it is now.”
The lady goes back wondering if her husband will take her back but to her surprise he accepts her back and on her arrival he cooks her a fantastic dinner and gives her an expensive gift that he had been waiting to give her if she ever returned. Not long after this however, she decides to leave again and again. Finally, after being gone for a long time the husband had heard she had been sold into human trafficking. He looked for her and found her and bought her back even though she had gone out on him so many times and did not love him back.
He still showed her love and forgiveness and was willing to show her unconditional love. We might think this story sounds crazy and that the man in the story is even crazier for continually taking back someone who obviously didn’t know how to show him the same kind of love back. This is actually a true story found in the Bible from the Book of Hosea. Hosea was a prophet of God and he was instructed by God to marry a harlot, named Gomer. Through this broken relationship God would use it as a visual example of His love for His people.
The people of God were continually leaving and chasing after other gods and religions, or just out doing their own thing out of the will of God. Yet, God was willing to take them back because of His great love for them. However, we too need to understand that even though God will give people many opportunities to come to accept His love and forgiveness there unfortunately will be some who no matter what they use their own free will to choose to continually reject God; or believe and live in ways outside the will of God but claiming it to be “godly” and at this point as one can read in the first chapter of Romans God will give them over to a mind-set of (having no principles or morals shown in their behaviors) and on that Day He will tell them, “Depart from Me for I never knew you.” But I truly believe that God through His great love will attempt many times to get those gone astray to come back. Just like in the parable of the lost sheep Jesus symbolically as the Shepherd is willing to leave the 99 sheep to go looking for the one little lost lamb.
TRS originally written 5-1-22
Rays of Hope 