Return

. . . and I will return them to their homes, says the Lord. 

 - From Hosea 11

Hosea 11 is one of Scripture's tenderest passages. It is like visiting the aging father of a son that grew up and went bad. The child had been raised correctly, faithfully, warmly and lovingly, in a home that loved the Lord. 

But sometimes, there just is no explaining how people turn out. Is it in the DNA of some people, to just be trouble? Do they start out with the seed of evil (perhaps we all do), but circumstances, and the environment, conspire to cultivate the bad seed? And once they start down the wrong path, they soon feed these impulses with liquor, drugs, sex, and other intoxicants. 

It is easy to persuade an already vain person, to focus on themselves: "You be you!" and "You deserve to be happy!" Soon, it feels so good to be vain, selfish, and in the end . . . evil itself. And as Scott Peck wrote so convincingly, evil is nothing more than the extreme expression of selfishness. 

The good feeling of wrongfulness soon gets confused with Good, itself. "If it feels good, it must be Good."

To paraphrase the song If doing bad is wrong, I don't wanna be right.

In the Hosea passage, as I said, God is the elderly man, that has not heard from his son in years. He has heard about him. He knows that he is in trouble. The old man has visitors, and pulls out the family photo album. He points to photos of his son-gone-bad, before all of that. Here is the boy at six years of age, with the family dog. Here he is in a Cub Scout uniform. Here is is playing varsity basketball. The old man beams with pride at the joy his son once brought him.

When Israel was a child, I loved him . . . 

But all is takes is for the son to come home. To treat the father with respect and love once again. To change his ways and make the family proud . . . again. 

And all will be forgotten. 

That's God.