I grew up in a mining town in southwest New Mexico.  It was an open-faced copper mine.  At one time it boasted that it was the largest open-faced copper mine in the U.S. My father did not specifically work for the mining company, but everything about the town was built completely on the copper mining industry. In fact, I can’t currently think of anyone but my dad and one other man at church that were not miners…or worked somewhere in the mine. Some of my earliest memories are living in a two-story house where the top story was our house and the bottom story was my father’s office.  He worked for the real estate company that owned the town around the mine.  Big dump trucks drove past our home all the time, all hours of the day (and night).  My grandfather was an electrician, my two uncles and a great uncle worked at the smelting plant (and no I don’t know what that means exactly, I was too little to tour the plant). I knew men that worked on the big dump trucks, and men that worked the cranes. There was a lot of work to get the rock dug out of the earth, melted in fire, and purified to get to the copper bars that are needed to make wire, pots and pennies. Copper mining in the 60’s was a very involved process.  It takes some extra digging to get down to what is needed to get the rocks with copper in them to make the bars. Although I’m sure the copper mining industry has changed the way they do things since the 1960’s, there is one principle that is the same.  You must dig into the earth to find something of value.

Many times, when I study the Bible, I come across the same thing.  I’m strolling along through the scriptures walking on the “plain rock”, and all of a sudden there is something that catches my eye.  Something that seems worth a bit more time to me. It needs to be “dug into” and see if I can find the “vein” of truth that I need in my life.  The next few paragraphs are thoughts on some of those nuggets that I found in my study of Hosea. Let’s “dig in” to the “veins” of scripture.

Scripture Vein #1– The first place I want to dig a little bit is in Hosea 4. God is pronouncing judgement on the Israelites.  His purpose is to turn them back to Him.  Chapter 4:4-7 is a frightening scripture to me.  The Israelites had been blindly following the priests without seeking what God was wanting them to do.  Verse 6 says “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you asmy priests; because you have ignored the law of your God…”  Today, it is hard to watch the trend in our Lord’s church.  Life has us busy. We are chasing our children and grandchildren to all of their events.  Our work days are longer. Because of our wealth, it is easier to follow our “leisure dreams” and focus on anything other than our Father.  When we allow other things to push into our lives, our gods take the place of God. We seek knowledge on trips, sporting events, fashion, the latest technology, and cars (that’s my list). We blow off seeking our Father and His word.  Our heart follows our desires. It makes me wonder, where is my heart? What do I focus my time and energy on?

Turn to Ecclesiastes 2. Solomon goes through a long list of things he sought. He built beautiful homes, planted incredible gardens. He had many slaves, herds and flocks of animals. When he wanted to be entertained, he merely requested it and it was his. He had more wealth than I can imagine. Anything he wanted….ANYTHING HE WANTED WAS HIS. Ecclesiastes 2:10 says “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired: I refused my heart no pleasure”.  Now look at verse 11, ”Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun”.What god am I focused on? Am I seeking God, my Father? Or am I seeking all that is meaningless in life?

Go back to Hosea 4:6-7. “Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children….they exchanged their glorious God for something disgraceful.”That is really tough for me to see.  If I don’t focus on my Father, I will exchange Him for a disgraceful god. It is so easy for me to read scriptures like that and think it only applies to gods that Canaanites had, or gods of other enemies of Israel.  But the nugget of truth is that my gods are disgraceful.  They can cause me to turn my eyes from God. The gods that I have in my life cannot direct my path, protect me from satan, and has certainly not given me opportunity to have an eternal life in heaven.

So what does seeking knowledge of God look like? I’m the first one to say that I can’t quote scripture for everything that goes on…truthfully, there is very little scripture that I have memorized. As important as that is, I don’t believe that is what is being said here. The nugget of truth that I have found is the importance for me to see who God is, and what He is wanting me to do. I can only find that out through a relationship with Him. A relationship only exists when I spend time with Him. Time in His word and prayer.  It is only through this relationship with Him that I can know God. When I have this relationship with God, when I know Him, it transforms everything in my life.  My thoughts, my actions, my priorities and my values are based on Him and what He wants for me….from me.

Scripture Vein #2 – Hosea 4:10 pronounces a judgement on the people of Israel. “They will eat and still be hungry. They will play the prostitute and gain nothing from it, for they have deserted the LORD to worship other gods.”The NIV Study Bible has this note in it about that scripture. “God’s judgement matches the punishment to the crime. The Israelites worshiped Canaanite fertility deities with the expectation of bountiful crops and herds….” God directly attacked the god that the Israelites worshipped.  Make no mistake about it. It wasn’t that Israel had totally abandoned God, they just simply added other gods to whom they worshipped. OUCH! That felt more like a boulder falling on me from a landslide, not a nugget of truth that I found on the scripture path.

Do you remember other times that God attacked the gods that Israel had put before Him? Look back in Exodus chapters 7-11.  Each of the plagues that were used to attack the Egyptians, were gods that they worshipped.  Make no mistake about it. God will attack our gods. He will not share His throne. There are times that I have made wealth my god. God called me and my family to be all in for Him. That required putting away some of the trips we like to take. It required refocusing finances. It required a more dedicated time alone with God. It required seeking those that are hurting and hopeless.  None of this was easy for me to do.  I’m like every American I know.  I like my time to be mine. I like my stuff the way I like it.  I enjoy my life of leisure. “All in” looked different to me. Satan is no fool.  He crawled into my life and started telling me that “all in” didn’t really mean I had to make sacrifices.  He said God was okay with the status quo of my life. Just like Eve, he just changed a couple of words in his temptation. I confess, I have failed God. I have been guilty of putting wealth gods in front of God.  How did God attack my god of wealth? Everything now is meaningless. It’s like I looked at the promised land and can’t go in.

Scripture Vein #3 – Now go to Hosea 6:6 “I want faithful love more than I want animal sacrifices. I want people to know me more than I want burnt offerings.” (NCV)  This verse goes along with Micah 6:8, “And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” It would be easy to just walk down the scripture path and only see that we need to be merciful. But when I stop and take a good look at the path, there is a lot more in this scripture than just being merciful. There is a vein of information that needs to be mined.

I have lived my entire life as a Christian.  I want to confess to you right now though that most of my life I was more worried about whether I was doing church right and not if I had a personal relationship with my LORD.  Can you relate? Why is it so important to make sure “I look the part” of a Christian and not truly seek to be Christ like? Why do I get so hung up on the sermon, the music, how the church building looks, and not on who knows Jesus? I confess this is a sin I have struggled with.  My God never intended for me to be caught up in appearance over substance. My God never intended for me to spend all my energy on “getting things right” and “ignoring what was righteous”, like mercy towards those around me.

A few years back, I purchased my husband a beautiful wool sweater.  It was soft…VERY SOFT. He loved to pull it on and wear it on cold winter days. One day as he was about to walk out the door, I noticed a large hole on the back of it, up by the neck. You guessed it. There were other small holes in different places that he had not noticed when he put it on. We opened the drawer where his wool sweaters were stored, and yes, two or three others had holes in them. Moths had ruined them. They took something that was beautiful and destroyed it.

If we back up to Hosea 5:12, I think we see how we get to the point that we are focused on the wrong things.  “I will destroy Israel as a moth consumes wool.  I will make Judah as weak as rotten wood.”Again, I will refer to my NIV Study Bible. It is sin that comes in and destroys. My focus should be on where God is leading me and what He wants me to do.  My piousness causes me to not look to Him, but to things I want, even the way I want things done.  If I dig deep enough into who I am, it is my sin of pride that causes me to seek things my way and not the way God is leading me.  Just like the moth-eaten sweater, by the time I realize that the moth has been eating away at my relationship with God and His people, there is a big hole in my life.  I have caused damage to those around me. I have damaged the reputation of my Father and family to those that see my lack of mercy.  My lack of mercy toward others reflects who I believe God to be.  Is He merciful? Or is He sitting in the sky writing down everything I do wrong?

As you reflect on this blog, I pray that you consider where Israel was during the time of Hosea.  Hosea was sent by God to have His people return to Him.  It was a painful process. The attacks on their gods were real. They did not make the right decisions very often. (Sadly, I relate.) They would start turning to God, then turn back to their gods. BUT God never gave up on them. He never stopped pursuing them. That is great news for us today because HE STILL PURSUES US. He wants that relationship with you and me. He wants us to represent Him to all those in our life by showing His mercy toward others.  Can you join me in digging deep into these truths of God?

Blessings – Cherie