Time Out: Weekly quiet times for the youth worker’s soul.

Quick note from Adam: Hey everyone. I just wanted to start out with a quick apology. I know the Time Out Posts have been few and far between lately. About two months ago, I resigned from my church position, was unemployed, and wound up taking another position in the secular world doing online marketing. It’s been a huge transition for me and the family, and though it’s working out very well, I have been slacking here. I think we’re in a groove now, and should be good to go. So sorry about the inconsistency! -Adam (Time Out Editor)

“I married a whore.”

Just writing that for a blog like this feels really in appropriate. It doesn’t seem proper, it’s highly offensive, and just doesn’t fly in the circles many of us run in. It comes from Scripture though.

That’s what God asked Hosea to do. God told him to marry a whore. That sounds so off the wall and so out of character, I still struggle to comprehend it when reading it.  But, here’s why he does it:

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, “Go, take to yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.” (Hosea 1:2)

Wow. God tells Hosea to do this, because it’s the exact picture of what Israel was doing to Him. The claimed faithfulness, kind of did what they were supposed to in their role, but basically ran through some of the motions while their heart and a majority of their actions were somewhere else. And, God knew that the best way to paint this picture was through whoredom, and for the people to see this.

We still do that a lot today. We acknowledge God, but our relationship with Him isn’t where it should be. It’s really easy to do the Christian thing and do others things in secret.

I’m going to be really candid for a minute. I noted above that I left my position in ministry recently (everything is fine – there were financial and philosophical issues that made continuing the situation impossible). Since being out of formal ministry, I’ve learned a lot. One thing that I notice in retrospect is that often in doing ministry, my heart wasn’t close to God. I never openly rebelled and didn’t do anything that was really out of line — I just know that many times ministry became more of a job, a challenge, and a task to accomplish than it was about the heart. Even in caring for others, mine was not always seeking after God. Ministry often became a barrier to my relationship with God. I needed to pull a good gut check.

So, take a minute and just reflect on some of these things for a minute (and I encourage you to read all of Hosea 1).

• Is your heart seeking after God first and foremost?
• What is taking away from your faithfulness to God (if anything)?
• If you treated your spouse like you treat God, what would that look like?

Posted on February 20, 2012