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The Preacher
and the Hooker
Chapter VII
Hosea Buys Back Gomer
Hosea 3:2-3, So I bought her [back from slavery] for a couple of dollars and eight bushels of barley, (not much worth
in the eyes of the world, but Gomer had worth to God and Hosea) and I said to her, You
must live alone for many days; do not go out with other men nor be a prostitute, and I will wait for you.
My sin was every bit as wicked as Gomer’s.
I was in slavery to an addiction with excessive compulsive co-dependency behaviors that destroy through controlling
and manipulation. Any control that controls our ability or shades our ability to think on our own is controlling.
Any control other than God’s, will leaves a path of destruction in our lives. Look at your
own life, what is controlling you and your decisions, or who is controlling you and your decisions. What
is your track record, who are you blaming? As you read my words say with me, it is time to look at ME.
The feast that Gomer was celebrating
was to Baal-Moleck with all it’s orgies, idol worship and child sacrifices. Though God and Hosea
were angered and both had a hatred for the unfaithfulness and sin, they never rejected them (Gomer and Israel) completely,
neither did they enable their sin by extending unqualified mercy, but God and Hosea did show mercy when Gomer was ready.
But until Gomer was ready, God and Hosea held off. God and Hosea allowed them (Gomer and Israel)
to suffer the consequences of their disobedience. We keep asking why? Why do I have
to suffer? Why does everything and every relationship for me fall apart? Could it be
because we did not or do not listen to God’s voice? God and Hosea made restoration possible through
allowing and making a way for repentance and through perseverance during a period of painful exile, listen to God and the
message of Hosea. Don’t give up, don’t quit there is always hope.
God and Hosea allowed for genuine love that demanded that they
withdraw their mercy to allow them time to see the consequences of their actions. The best thing to do
in many cases when people continue to fall is to allow them to fall and refuse to catch them. We may have
to let them fall so they can learn the painful consequences of their actions before they will reach out for help.
Our addictions and compulsions are just
like Gomer's because we search for the fulfillment of needs that only God can give. God may be patient
for a while with us, but if we put off our recovery there will be a day He will turn us over to the consequences of our addictions,
and we will feel shame and suffer physical pain as well, God will refuse to rescue us so we can see just what our
gods that we use for our inner peace, self gratification and acceptance of others has given us.
Look at yourself man stop blaming. Have you ever thought that
maybe, just maybe, you and I are to blame? How many years of heartache does it take, how many failures,
before we give it up and follow God’s instruction? But there is hope even if we have failed.
God loves us. We don’t have to die in our sins or with our controlling thoughts and continuation
of failures. If we fess up to him, we will be redeemed. Fessing up involves a deep search.
If we are completely honest in our own self-examination and confessions, God will give us healing forgiveness that
we need for our recovery.
When
we read Hosea 10:1-12 we will realize our own accountability before God. God will destroy our false gods and altars we use for
our addictions. While we are working on our own recovery, we will have to learn to accept our responsibilities
for our actions, even when we are powerless over them. We must realize that our actions will yield consequences
even if they have been put on us by others. That is why God makes it very clear in Nehemiah that we need
to do a search to see where it has brought us.
11/7/96
Step 4 Family Influence Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. states that:
We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Bible Reading: Nehemiah 9:1-38, Nehemiah 9:30-32
You were patient with them for
many years. You sent your prophet to warn them about their sins, but still they wouldn’t listen.
So once again you allowed the heathen nations to conquer them, (who are these people? The sons of
Abram, (which include you and I) but in your great mercy you did not destroy them completely or abandon them forever.
What a gracious and merciful God you are!
In the Bible, God sends his word with instructions on how to raise children. Don’t
exacerbate your children along with many others. God tries to get through to us but we just don’t
listen. God created us, gave us instructions and we leave them in the glove box until we break down.
The Israelites in Nehemiah 9:34-38 are confessing sins of their ancestors. They are showing anger because they lost their land, their possessions,
their freedom and their dignity. They became slaves in a land of plenty. When the Israelites
confessed their sins they also identified the sins their forefathers had done. They then made a covenant
that they would promise to serve the Lord.
At the center of my own moral inventory I had to deal with destructive habits, defects in character, the wrongs I
have done. The consequences that I live with, and the horrible hurt I have caused others.
I have to look hard into my past now, and this one lesson I
have had the most trouble starting because of the digging I have had to do. I know my Mom and Dad may have
faults but I respect and love them too much to make an inventory of the faults.
For years, as I now see it, I have tried to please others. When
someone rejects me for what ever reason, I feel a gnawing in my chest that goes along with a feeling that I have hurt someone’s
feelings or that they did not like me. If I hurt someone from church, a friend, Mom, Dad, a child- I immediately
apologize and feel horrible for days. My worth has been from pleasing. Giving something
I thought people needed or wanted or I misread they needed or wanted. That’s why it has been so dangerous
for me to find somebody who had a need. Lonely people who needed friends.
My parents were both raised in a
holiness church. My mother was raised by a mother and relatives that programmed a hatred for her father
from a very early age. The hatred that was programmed in so intense that when my mother married she had
her brother give her away while her father came into the church and just sat in the back. The hurts that
are put on people to make statements on such an important day are hurts that cut to the quick and last for years.
Years later my mother and father picked up my grandfather who was hitch-hiking. My grandfather said,
I have a beautiful daughter who looks just like you. My parents did not tell him that my mother
was his daughter. When my grandfather died my mother had never had reconciliation with her father.
My mother has told me that forty years later that the guilt, hurt and pain directly affected her relationship with
my father.
I remember how my mother
was very much focused whenever the Christmas holidays were here. I remember how much I enjoyed the preparation
and beauty that was brought into our home. But as I mentioned in an earlier chapter we need to look for
and analyze key words. Why was Christmas such a beautiful time? Because my mother was
focused, key word. Focused (noun): The area that may be seen distinctly or resolved into a clear image,
center of activity, attraction or attention. Focusing (verb): to bring to a focus: concentrate: to cause
to be concentrated. The opposite would be out of focus: not in focus.
The sharp focus stood out in my mind because this only went on from Thanksgiving
until New Year’s Day. This left eleven months of the year, from the time I was three or four until
I was twenty of being out of focus. A time when the focus went within.
My mother carried for years the guilt of hatred towards her father and guilt of
messing around with my father before they were married. Part of the guilt was put on at an altar by a
Saint of God, by their condemnation. When Jesus had a woman thrown in front of
him for infidelity the people condemned her to be stoned. Jesus did not condemn her but freed her by forgiving
her. When Jesus freed her unconditionally she was freed to love Jesus and became one of the first to see
him even before the disciples after He was resurrected. Mary was freed from guilt by love and acceptance,
my mother was also freed when fifty years later God showed her what forgiveness and mercy are. My mother
now does not hide her past just as I do not hide my past, so that healing can be brought to myself and to others in need.
The time of inward focus was a time
of trying to handle guilt and shame through all of the means that do not work as mentioned in the study of Hosea, total deliverance
of guilt was not brought about until just three years ago with the study of the book Search for Significance, by Rapha Resources.
I lost my childhood because of having to grow up. I had to watch out for my Mom when quite young
so she wouldn’t take too much medicine. I had to watch that she wouldn’t try to go up to the
lake and maybe drown herself. And I can remember saying to myself at the age of eight or nine that
my Mom is searching for attention. I was Momma’s little man. At eight or nine
I did not need to be a little man. I needed to be a little boy. I knew at an early age
where the medicine was hidden. I knew what outsiders thought, if they knew, that my Mommy had problems.
I learned to cover and defend those problems. I learned not to see bad in people. I
learned to become silent-to-a-fault to cover problems in our house. I learned never question but to just
protect. I was having a fault to my character programmed into my psyche to protect wrongs, I took on a
character flaw of wearing blinders and having tunnel vision.
Rescuing brought self worth to a little boy who seemed to never be able to please his father.
When I was in the seventh grade I was up in my tree house and my cousin who lived down the street made a smart remark
about my mother leaving my dad for Shawn. I was not a fighter. I was not a fast runner
or good at sports. I climbed down that tree so fast and went after my cousin and tackled him just across
the street. I began to beat him while he screamed for help. His mother heard him from
two houses away and came to his rescue. She told me to stop and get off of him, I kept going.
I think she may have grabbed me and pulled me off of him, but I’m not sure. I do remember
she said, You should have more respect for your elders. I said, Why
should I have respect for a gossip? They left and I went back home. I never treated
people bad and I never have gossiped to this day because I know how gossip will hurt people.
I learned how to day dream and dreamed of rescuing my childhood
girlfriends. I remember my childhood love affairs being very intense. My mind was constantly
preoccupied with wanting to save them from harm, sit next to or by a fireplace holding hands with someone just to have someone
like me. Just to have someone love me. These pictures were so frequent that I can today
rattle off first and last names for each grade from kindergarten through sixth grade of my one-sided fantasy love affairs.
The only girl I ever did hold hands with when in grade school was Marilyn (my uncle’s sister). She
was asleep on the back seat on our way home from the coast.
I remember cooking a lot when I was young. I could fry an egg
at six. It seemed my Mom was never home, so I always cooked my own eggs. And at lunch
and after school I just went to my grandparents.
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