Crazy Hosea & You

We recently watched a church created film on Hosea; it had its cheesy moments and moved a little slow. That being said, it did a great job portraying the prophet Hosea. He's a minor prophet and bit nuts. Weren't they all.

Let me sum up: Hosea is preaching to the ancient people of Northern Israel in the 8th century B.C. He preached and prophesied for 25 years. During that time he was told to marry a prostitute, stay faithful to her in the face of her continual infidelity, keep loving her, bringing her home and telling his neighbors to get right with God.

He won't shut-up. He's telling everybody else to straighten up and get back to Holy living, setting themselves apart from their pagan neighbors. The thing is that there was no threat, the economy was booming, the Israelites had relative freedom and tolerance was the name of the game. It was a live and let live kind of world. All good, right? But Hosea kept harping on this repent and turn back to the Kingdom of Heaven thang. Live and let live except for the religious fanatic who kept harping on the fact that God says He wanted His people set apart. Set. Apart. Holy. Not almost Christian. All Christian. Not almost set apart, not flirting with it. Done.

The man was a lunatic. Seriously. And this cheesy little church movie showed that part well. Which is what I appreciated about it. I got a real sense of just how nuts Hosea, and most servants of the Most High God, comes across. Hosea and the other prophets were not what we would call men of their times. They are often not successful in the eyes of the world, they were called to do crazy, irrational things that p*ssed people off. God chose to use Hosea's life as a living message to His people. Hosea followed and obeyed but he looked like a fool to the normal, middle class folks living next to him in suburbia. And probably the rich and poor folks, too.

In the end, howevah, Hosea was right. The northern kingdom was attacked by the Assyrians, who, by the way, put the brutal in brutality and the terror in terrorism. Their very name struck fear into the hearts of people. Israel’s upper-class and nobility was carted away to serve in the land of Assyria, the most brutal and feared pagans in the Ancient World (no wonder Jonah was afraid of them) to do whatever feared pagans do to captured people. We don't hear mention of the middle and lower classes- my guess is that they were the lab rats on which the Assyrians honed their savage skills.

Then this week-end I read The Harbinger. I'd read 1/2 of it before and it seemed plausible but didn't really grab me. But it kept coming up. An aunt sent us a copy; a client asked Dr. Dh about it and a FB friend pm'd me regarding it. I read it. I get it, it makes sense. All day, I've had this sense of wanting to go back and read the rest of the story. But I've finished it.

Along with that I had a crazy, creepy, apocalyptic, horror movie dream. I am anti-horror movie. I don't watch them, I don't watch commercials for them, I don't read them, I avoid them. I'm a Jane Austen, Narnia, G- rated reading/watching kinda gal. The closest I come to horror is The Divine Comedy. So, it's not like the dream was from bad gravy and watching Louis the Ax Murderer or anything. It was one of those dreams where you don't want to go to bed the next night. An Assyrian Invasion, Prince of Terror kind of dream.Oy vey.

Feeche just read The 4th Turning and had dark and ominous thoughts afterward, even for a teen-ager. We are for sure in a time of great societal upheaval. Whether you believe it's the end times or just the end of the Modern Age, it's certainly a time of shifting. Either way, do the thing you are called to do, but be sure of the calling. Calling a non-calling a calling is to thumb your nose at Hosea. And while Hosea might have been a bit crazy he had fire power (can you say, Master of the Universe) on his side. Don't tug on Superman's cape. And don't toy with His messengers.

Wake up, oh sleeper, do the thing you were born to do. Don't pretend and do the easy thing. Be a Hosea. Be bold, passionate, crazy in love and passionate for the Real Thing. Even if your neighbors think you're nuts. Even if you are comfortable and would rather sleep more. Time's a wasting. Time's growing short.

Yep. That.