Hosea 6

To be perfectly honest (which hopefully is something you can expect from a blog), I am just as at a loss to explain God's goodness as I am the times when everything seems just awful. You know you hear of people asking, "Why God? Why?" when things are crashing down around them. But I find myself asking that same question when things are going great.

I can see how people would resort to myths and stories to explain this phenomena like, "The planets were just in alignment." For at first glance it seems like it might just be that random. But of course I believe it's not. I know God's hand is at work in all things and through all things. I see Him all up in my life right now. At every turn. In the whirlwind. But He was also right there so close on the days when I lay sobbing on my face on the rug.

In both times, at all times, we must acknowledge God. Acknowledge His power, His sovereignty, is grace, His love, and His mercy, even when we can't make sense of what's going on. Rain or shine. That's what verse 3 says to me.

But I must say, I do realize that much of my life's turn from rain to shine has been borne out of some serious scrubbing in my soul. Rubbing off the rough edges. And that's where my favorite verse in this chapter comes from. "I don't want your sacrifices, I just wanted you to obey in the first place." He'd rather show me mercy than have to collect the punishment but "the hard way" may have been the only route to really being able to acknowledge God's place in my life. He is in control and I am not. If that was a fact that took me a few years to genuinely internalize, then so be it.

But I am loving the sunshine. God is so good. I just can't see how I possibly deserve it sometimes.