I was reminded this week that sometimes we need to take our eyes off ourselves and listen to God. Sometimes we get so zoomed in on our own stuff, our own worries, our own little world, that we forget there’s a much bigger picture. And honestly? There’s no better way to get our eyes off ourselves and really tune into what God is doing, and what He wants us to do, than to focus on the needs of others. When we start looking at what’s going on with everyone else, our own mountains suddenly don’t seem quite so massive.
If you are following along in the Bible in a Year, you know that we started the book of Hosea today. Now, if you’re not familiar, Hosea’s story is a wild ride. God asks him to marry a woman who will be unfaithful to him, as a living, breathing picture of God’s relationship with Israel – His people who kept wandering off. It’s a powerful lesson that we can take into our prayer time today.
Hosea chapter 3, verse 1 says: "The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.”
Right out of the gate, God shows the depth of His love. God tells Hosea, "Go again." Not "Go find someone new," not "Go give her a piece of your mind," but "Go again, love her." God is showing His relentless, stubborn, unconditional love. Even when His people are off doing their own thing, chasing after their “sacred raisin cakes" -and we all have our sacred raisin cakes, but even God’s love doesn’t quit. It’s a love that pursues.
As we go to prayer time, let’s Reflect on God’s Unconditional Love. Think about that person you know who has turned to other gods/raisin cakes. Maybe they’ve made some choices that are hard to understand. God’s love is still chasing them. God has unconditional love.
Verse 2. Hosea says, "So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley."
Hosea doesn’t just say, "Okay, I love you, come on back." He buys her back. He pays a price to redeem her. This is such a powerful picture of what God does for us, and what He wants to do for those who are lost. He desires to redeem them, to buy them back from whatever is holding them captive, and to restore them. When we’re praying for people who are far from God, we’re not just asking God to nudge them; we’re asking for a full-on divine buyout! We’re praying for Him to step in and pay the price – which, spoiler alert, He already did through Jesus – but for that redemption to become real in their lives. So, Pray for Redemption and Restoration
Finally, let’s look at verse 3: Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.”
So Hosea brings her back, but there’s a period of waiting, a time of just being his. "You are to live with me many days." This wasn’t an instant fix. It’s a process, a time of healing and re-learning what it means to be in a committed relationship.
This teaches us so much about patience in prayer. Sometimes, we pray for someone, and we want to see a change yesterday. But God’s timing is perfect. There’s often a "many days" period. Our job is to keep showing up in prayer, to keep interceding with faithfulness, trusting that God is working behind the scenes, even when we can't see it. It’s easy to get discouraged, but this verse reminds us to dig our heels in and trust the process.
As we go into our prayer time, reflect on God’s unconditional love, pray for redemption and restoration, pray for patience in the transformation.