We Return, But Not Upward

They do not cry to me from the heart,
   but they wail upon their beds;
for grain and wine they gash themselves;
   they rebel against me.
Although I trained and strengthened their arms,
   yet they devise evil against me.
They return, but not upward;
   they are like a treacherous bow;
their princes shall fall by the sword
   because of the insolence of their tongue.
This shall be their derision in the land of Egypt. - Hos 7:14-16

As I reflectively read Hos 7 the other day, I was struck by how similar my heart is to the people Hosea was writing to over 2 millennia ago. How often do I "cry on my bed" but not from a love for God or compelled by the love of Christ, but simply because something's not working the way I want it to? How often do I "return, but not upward", not so much repenting from my sin but rather being sad at getting caught in my sin?

Now, I realize this is a warning / rebuke delivered back in the OT days to a specific people in a particular circumstance. Yet, I can't help but see the universality of fallen men and women in the heart attitude this rebuke calls out. When God afflicts us, how do we respond? Maybe more to the heart of the matter, do we love God or his stuff? I'm guessing the good old Sunday School type answer is that certainly we love God more, but do our prayers and our passions actually display this?

The good news, of course, is that God is the God of 2nd, 3rd, and 99th chances. And, if we take seriously his promises, perhaps our first task could be to ask him to reveal to us how often we "do not cry to him from the heart" and ask him to move us toward the point where our the joys and the aches of our hearts are more in alignment with his.

To God Alone Be The Glory.