Can God Get Hurt?

It would be difficult to read Hosea and not come away with the impression that God was feeling a lot like a husband whose wife was cheating on him with everyone she could find. He had given Israel everything — their land, their produce, their wealth — and they used it to promote the worship of other Gods. They even made idols out of the silver He gave them. And God was aghast at their brazen rejection of Him.

Relationships are risky, by definition. To join with another person means we risk being left, or worse. And God has risked everything, even the life of His Son, to be in relationship with us. No wonder Jesus cried, "O Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered you to me, but you would not have it!" 

And yet He persists. Even with all of their foul behavior, God insists on coming back and asking them to be in relationship with Him again. What an incredible heart of love! How unfathomable His desire for us truly is.

To enter into a relationship is an act of trust — trust in the goodness and good intentions of the other. However, for God, there is another element to deal with, and that is the fact that we are not trustworthy. So He enters into relationship with us knowing that only His love and His active work in us will be able to make us into the kind of people who can actually be in relationship with Him. That is why He is so eager to do in us and for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He wants our relationship with Him to be more fruitful and loving than we can ever imagine! And He will do whatever it takes.

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