Passage Read: Daniel 12 - Hosea 3
Meditation Verses: Hosea 2:11-15
Thought
God promises to destroy all the resources of His adulterous wife, Israel. He promises to take away all her celebrations, all her treasures and cause all her lovers to turn against her. He will then drive her out into the wilderness, where He will speak kindly to her. The first sounds like the understandable response of a bitter and jealous husband, but the end of it, a bitter husband can't speak tenderly to his adulterous wife! They want to destroy the person, not restore the relationship. But all of God's "wrath" and destruction is to isolate His wife, to leave her no way to go, so that she can finally hear from Him again and see that He was the one who provided for her and loved her and cared for her all along. In all the destroying, He never stopped loving her, which is why He never destroyed her. His goal and purpose was always restoration, so tenderness at the end needed no special mustering.
Application
This is hard for me to understand, either as the one offended or the one who offended. I always take punishment as rejection. If I'm being punished, I must be wanted no more. If I'm the one driven to punish, I know compassion should drive the discipline. In fact, without care, there would be no discipline; I would just leave them be in their hurtful behavior. That's where I end up when offended enough times; I give up the relationship. But God is never so consumed by His wrath that it extinguishes His compassion; it is His longing for His people, His love for them that drives His discipline, so that when the discipline has been fully carried out, He is able to speak tenderly and kindly to allure His people back to Him. This is especially hard for me when I'm the one offended. Lord, heal my heart so I can have this kind of compassion.