Kingdom Building

July 30, 2019

Scripture Reading: Hosea 11:1-11

How can I give you up, Ephraim?
   How can I hand you over, O Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
   How can I treat you like Zeboiim?
My heart recoils within me;
   my compassion grows warm and tender.
I will not execute my fierce anger;
  I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
   the Holy One in your midst,
   and I will not come in wrath.  Hosea 11:8-9

Hosea opines that God does not want to destroy. God is the God of second changes. We probably all know about Sodom and Gomorrah, but I did not know that Admah and Zeboim* mentioned in the above scripture were destroyed at the same time. Hosea apparently did know of them. I wonder why he chose to use these more obscure examples of the destruction in the Valley of Siddim. Perhaps he did not want to get his lesson bogged down in the details of the event but just to say that the destruction happened.

Does God destroy or do humans project destructive actions onto God? I know that we must face the consequences of our own actions. Jesus indicated that it rains on the just and the unjust**. We all have observed that. God’s mercy surely at times abates both our folly as well as heals the damage from outside forces impacting the innocent. I watched on the news recently as a little girl left a rehab hospital after many surgeries with both her arms intact. She was injured in a tornado and the original fear was one of her arms would need to be amputated.

Hosea recognizes the mighty God as no mortal, a Holy One in our midst, we cannot ever fully understand but we can trust as one who longs for the very best for each of us and all of us. When we falter, God’s tender mercies are there for us, if we seek them.

Prayer: Lord, help us grow in spirit and in truth as we learn to love like you. Amen.

*Deuteronomy 29.23
**Matthew 5:45

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.