Verse of the Week -- Hosea 6:3

Parched.

A dangerous way to start a day.

A dangerous way to live our lives.

Without physical water, H2O, we cannot live more than a few days. Yet, we try to live weeks without spiritual water. Once a week drinking from a living well is not enough. We need daily spiritual hydration to stay alive spiritually.

My own devotional life had fizzled. I went each weekend to church starving and dehydrated. I soaked it in. Emotional at the graciousness of God to fill me each week as I stumbled along throughout the days in between.

Somehow, I had to grab control of the craziness that had become my life and get nourishment on a more regular basis.

Then I was challenged to read the Bible in 90 days. 90 days? Seriously? I could barely finish it in a year when I tried. How could I ever get it done in a quarter of that time?

Well, apparently I couldn't, but I got most of the way through. And, more importantly, it reestablished my quiet time.

For a long time I had been hungry, but blind to my need to actually search out food.

As I lifted the fork to my lips for the first time I savored the sweetness of a meal eaten simply because I craved it, not because it was a weekly habit. Genesis was brand new.

Each book each chapter, each verse filled my parched soul. I could not believe where I found choice morsels.

Again this week, in the minor prophets of all places . . .

"Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth." ~Hosea 6:3. Israel had so blatantly turned against God. Completely headed the wrong way. Ignoring their nagging spiritual thirst and only recognizing their crushing physical needs. They refused to see.

Hosea tried to call them back. Drawing back his own prostitute of a wife as a picture of God's love for the promiscuous nation.

I felt that love. It comes freely without condemnation. Responding is life changing.

I can't grow lazy. Can't let life crowd it out. I must press on to know Him more. As the refreshment of the spring showers comes, so does He.

Watering my soul, filling my cramping emptiness. Such refreshment. Don't go hungry.

Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD; his going out is sure as the dawn; he will come to us as the showers, as the spring rains that water the earth.

~Hosea 6:3~