I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face. (Hosea 5:15)

In the previous verse, Israel is ravaged by the divine Lion. The nation is torn and taken away, and none can rescue. Now the angry Lion is portrayed as returning to His lair with its prey in His mouth. He drops the faintly breathing body and lies down in His place. His fury is partly assuaged; His prey is barely alive. And He says, “I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offense, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.”

After some time, the body begins to groan and stir; the eyes open and slowly and fearfully focus on the angry adversary. Eyes meet. Time stands still.

“I’m so sorry,” stutters and stammers the aching body. “I provoked your anger. I understand and accept your just response. Thank you for sparing my life. Please pity me. Please help me.”

The Lion slowly rises and walks around the pitiful sight. He moves towards the face, pauses, opens His mouth, and…begins to lick the wounds and warm the fear-frozen limbs. The eyes open in wonder and, instead of seeing a bloodthirsty lion, behold a blood-shedding lamb!

Wounded, bleeding, barely breathing believer, has the Lord ravaged you? You provoked and provoked until His anger was justly roused. He tore you and took you away. Bodily disease, family disaster, business failure, or dark depression has left you barely alive. But you sense there is now a lull in the storm, some welcome days of relative peace.

This glimmer of comfort enables you to lift your eyes heavenward. And there you sense the root cause of all your troubles—the face of your God, justly angered by your backsliding and compromising. Eyes meet. Time stands still. Fight or flight? Or faith?

Faith neither fights nor flies but rather repents and casts all on the Savior’s mercy. Such faith and repentance transforms the bloodthirsty Lion into a blood-shedding Lamb. Look at the very next verse, “Come, and let us return to the Lord: for He has torn, but He will heal us; He has stricken, but He will bind us up” (Hos. 6:1).

  • Dan Phillips

    {I commented under the wrong post. Sorry}

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  • NJ

    So bodily disease, family disaster, business failure, or dark depression in believers are because God is angry with us? But who among us has not backslid and compromised, since we still sin? How does this not set Christians up to live in fear of what God might do to us if we step out of line?

    • David Murray

      Hi NJ. The answer to your first question is, No, not always. But sometimes it is. It was in this case as the verse (Hosea 5:15) makes clear by referring to the need to acknowledge offense against God. I think if you read the whole series of Hosea devotionals on the blog you’ll find a balanced presentation of the Christian life. But here I was dealing with sin-caused afflictions.

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