"For she did not know that I gave her grain, new wine and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold - which they prepared for Baal."
Hosea 2:8
The women's bible study I have been going to at Creekside has been such a blessing to me. I've only been involved in BSF before so I figured there would be a bit of a learning curve to how things were done in this new setting. But the women are so easy going and you can tell they really love the Lord. Everyone is included in the discussion, we pray for many needs within the church and it is just a great arena to give and receive support.
Anyway, this really does lead into my thoughts on the verse in Hosea. We are going through a study in a book called "A Heart that Dances" by Catherine Martin which I must say, I was a bit skeptical about at first :-) It sounded a little cheesy but I decided to just start the study and see what I could get from it. Really, it is the farthest thing from cheesy and is actually one of the most inspirational things I've worked on and read for a while. There are lots of pieces of work within each lesson from great Christians throughout history - people who speak of God in such a way that you can just tell how intimately they experience(d) God in their lives and how real He was to them.
And that is what this book is for - to learn how to know God and experience His presence in our lives. We started out in Hosea learning about what God called Him to do and witnessing God's interaction with His people demonstrated through Hosea's relationship with the woman he was called to marry. It gave me such a new perspective on true grace - I never realized how unwilling I was to accept things without expectations of performance or anything in return. It's wild to think of God really giving that kind of grace... and it's even crazier to see how we (mere humans thought up by God) think there is honestly something we can do to make up for accepting that grace.
Our discussion in the study eventually led to us talking about God's provision despite our flaws (like how He provided for Israel despite their idolatry) and that is where this verse really impacted me. I realized that 1 - it's not my job to worry about how I am provided for at this time in my life... and 2 - even if it IS Mark's job, ultimately God is the one who takes care of all our provisions, whether we realize it or not. We can try and take comfort in a job that pays enough, or superior budgeting skills or any of the ways we try and make sure we are secure, but it is all a veil that covers our eyes and deceives us. God is the only one who can do a thing about meeting our provisions. This isn't to say we ought to be careless with what we are given or to use this as an excuse for not paying attention to providing for our families. We ought to take comfort in seeing God's provision despite our ability to give Him anything in return and let that drive us to recognize His presence in our every moment. I know we will be surprised to see how He works.
Post a Comment