When the Lion Roars

 Rejection. We’ve all experienced it somewhere along the line. For some it is severe rejection. We feel it when we are the last chosen for a pick-up field game with friends or classmates. We feel it as teenagers when we can’t seem to connect with others as we want to. We feel it when we don’t get that job we applied for. Some feel it as they go through divorce, abuse in the home, or abuse in the neighborhood or even church. The hardest kind of rejection is when we have poured ourselves into another, loved them deeply and invested much time and even money into them only to have them walk away or worse yet, demean us and then walk away.

Hosea was talking to the Israelites. God invested in Abraham, his son Isaac, and then Jacob who He renamed Israel. Then God invested much time and resources into Jacob’s descendants as He freed them from the slavery in Egypt and led them to the Promised Land. After years of living in prosperity in the land, they wanted to be like other nations and have a king. So God gave them a king. They continued to want to be like other nations until there was no difference between them and the nations around them!

God continually sent prophets to warn them and help them turn their faces back to God, but the people rejected the prophets and their message. Finally, when God saw that they could not be turned back, He sent Hosea and in Hosea 11, we see God’s heart crying out from the pain of rejection. He has raised Israel up, taught her to walk, loved her, given her everything she could want. Yet Israel has chosen to reject Him. And He says, “But since my people refuse to return to me, they will return to Egypt (slavery) and will be forced to serve Assyria (a foreign political agenda). Hosea 11:5 “For my people are determined to desert me. They call me the Most High, but they don’t truly honor me.” Hosea 11:7 The God of compassion is hurting from the rejection much as a parent carries the pain of a wayward child. There is nothing a parent can do but pray and wait and hope. Anything they say or do pushes the child further away and makes the rejection deeper. All they want is for the child to return with a soft heart, able to love them again like they did as a child.

God says, “My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows. No, I will not unleash my fierce anger. I will not completely destroy Israel, for I am God and not mere mortal. I am the Holy One living among you, and I will not come to destroy. For someday the people will follow me. I, the Lord, will roar like a lion. And when I roar, my people will return trembling from the west. Like a flock of bids, they will come from Egypt (slavery). Trembling like doves, they will return from Assyria (foreign political agenda). And I will bring them home again,” says the Lord. Hosea 11:8b-11

Hosea still speaks to us today. Those who reject the ways of the Lord end up in all kinds of slavery. Addictions to wealth, status, power, food, drugs and alcohol to name a few. And they end up serving political agendas that are not of God’s design and become more and more restricting until the people are made into zombies not able to think for themselves or make choices. It is a little like a frog in water that is being heated. It doesn’t jump out because it doesn’t realize the danger until it is too late.

When a lion roars, we listen and we respond. When the lion roars, we will return from all that we have allowed to distract us and lead us away from Him and we will pay attention. He will then bring us back home to the completeness that He has designed us to be – to walk in His image. Oh that we would come willingly before He roars and experience His kingdom here and now! It is a kingdom filled with joy, peace, and love. The God who created us desires relationship with us and has gone to great lengths to keep the communications channel open and invite us home. How will we respond to Him?