The Betrayal of God
For I will be like a lion to Ephraim and like a young lion to the house of Judah.
I, even I, will tear to pieces and go away, I will carry away, and there will be none to deliver. Hosea 5:14 NASB
Tear to pieces – Day 6. Did you think God didn’t care? Did you think that your self-absorbed pursuit of substitutes for divine Presence escaped His notice? Did you think He was shamed? Or grieved? Or anguished over you? What loving parent would not experience the pain of rejection, the humiliation of abandonment?
And so the response.
“I will tear you to pieces and go away.” When YHVH utters words like these, we should fall face first and plead for our lives. Heschel’s insight into the divine response to unbridled desire is important. “In the domain of imagination the most powerful reality is love between man and woman. Man is even in love with an image of that love, but it is an image of a love spiced with temptation rather than a love phrased in service and depth-understanding; a love that happens rather than a love that continues; an image of tension rather than peace; . . .”[1]
The Bible makes it abundantly clear. Idolatry is adultery. And the groom responds. Sin is betrayal and the husband reacts. Divine jealousy is no laughing matter. What will the Lord of hosts do with those children who betray His trust and care? Ah, the lion comes. But not because we have broken some rules. If that were the reason, YHVH would send a judge. The lion comes because we have fornicated with the enemy. We have smeared the name of the Holy One in the beds of those who detest Him. We sought to fill our needs with our own devices and we ended up chasing the numbing pleasure of momentary relief. We loved love and we sought to make it happen. The lion comes to devour the putrid mess we have made of this marriage.
This, by the way, is the turning point. Not that we did anything to foster its healing effect. In fact, we most likely responded to the lion’s roar with terror and did all we could to delay his arrival. But listen to Heschel again.
“More excruciating than the experience of suffering is the agony of sensing no meaning in suffering, the inability to say, ‘Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.’”[2] If we are to be rescued from our malignant attachments, they must be destroyed. The lion must tear and shred and bloody the landscape. If we cannot fathom that the teeth of destruction are the pathway to peace, we will never be rescued from the prison of tolerance we have constructed around ourselves.
“The root of all evil is, according to Isaiah, man’s false sense of sovereignty . . .”[3] Under the influence of our addictions, we believed we were gods. We thought we could find our own solutions to the emotional devastation that lurks under the surface of our carefully orchestrated lives. We acted as if life belongs to us and should be experienced according to our designs. The lion comes from a different reality—a reality of divine determination.
A lion can crush the skull of an antelope with a single swipe of its paw. But it rarely does so. Instead, it toys with its prey, playing the death spiral, often eating while the victim is still alive but powerless. YHVH comes as the lion. Do not expect to die easily. Every tear of the flesh releases the accumulated toxins of self-satisfaction until there is no blood left to shed. Then God can give life—but not until then.
Today is the day you bleed.
Topical Index: lion, tear to pieces, death, idolatry, betrayal, Hosea 5:14
[1] Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, p. 50.
[2] Ibid., p. 147.
[3] Ibid., p. 165.
Meaninglessness is the basis of despair. There was no worse despair than that which I experienced when I thought that there was no purpose to my suffering; no redemptive quality to my pain. I needed the nobility of knowing that it MATTERED that I hurt – and it would have mattered if I knew someone CARED.
I didn’t know that it was I that determined whether or not my suffering mattered! I had power over my suffering to the extent that I could make choices about it. In the seminal book Man’s Search For Meaning, Victor Frankl writes about the two different classes of people that the suffering of the concentration camps produced: those to whom life had meaning, and those to whom it did not. One class produced survivors; the other produced victims. It was the exact same conditions for both: the question is, what was it that separated them? What I found in my little hell was that it was up to me to determine what my suffering meant. Oh, I tried all the obvious ways first. I denied it: that didn’t work, it only made me depressed. I tried self pity, hoping someone else would chime in: instead, others just hurried faster to get themselves to the other side of the road! I tried blaming others (hoping they would then feel enough guilt to take responsibility for my misery), but that made me schitzo. I tried blaming myself, but that gave me Chronic Fatigue, as the whips of Drivenness and Performance kept me in chronic adrenaline realities. I tried cutting deals with the devil, as he appeared to be the only one in the room with me, but I failed at being a badass; I mean, there were always hostages in my life: there were others who had no one but me; that I was being blackmailed with, in fact, and I had to play it straight for them. At the end of my day, I had found no way in my flesh to create meaning for my suffering, so, I blamed G-d. I thought that if it were His fault, then He would have to fix it! When He didn’t, I felt that that ‘proved’ that He had abandoned me, and my rage just grew.
In Tolkein’s Lord Of The Rings, Aragorn battles the chief of the Orcs, and, in the movie, as he finally runs him through with his sword, the Orc doesn’t even slow down, but grabs that sword with his hands and pulls himself along it – totally intent on the purpose for which he was created – to get himself within reach of Aragorn (however, he dies before he makes it). That picture has simply been the best illustration for me of how I need to face obstacles that seemingly prevent me from fulfilling my purpose for which I was created. I have dubbed it “walking the sword”, which is to say, use the momentum of disaster in your life: embrace the disaster as the opportunity it most certainly always is. All, all, is a gift from His hand. Start there. At some point beyond ‘my’ reasons and purposes, lie His. The correct choice of response to trouble at that point is Gimli the dwarf’s response when he was asked if he thought they should fight to defend Helm’s Deep: “Certainty of death, small chance of success – what are we waiting for?” If I do not understand that it all comes from His hand: both the ‘evil’ and the ‘good’ (and how would I know how to tell which is which?), then I am not going to be able to embrace everything in front of me equally with one single response: GRATITUDE! I am commanded to be thankful for everything. Until I learn exactly what that entails, I am not going to be able to be comforted by that Rod and that Staff.
The meaning of my suffering is that it shows me that it is NOT all about me! Suffering shakes me loose from my self-absorption, because at that point I can sincerely wish that it was NOT all about me! Only suffering can show me this. Success never will. The day I make a decision to start from a basis other than ME to determine meaning in my life is the day that that meaning has the room it needs to exist. I am not an island! The meaning in my life: its sufferings and successes, comes from it being about something BIGGER than me. Imagine that!
This topic, and related issues, is exactly what we are studying, and applying, in the exploration of Moses Luzzatto’s book. That study is being recorded each time and will be on the web site sometime. We are learning a lot.
Laurita – that was absolutely … AWESOME! Just have to sit here and shake my head that someone articulated so precisely what is in my heart – well, just shaking my head.
While I have been bantering the message that ALL comes from the Hand above…and I do mean ALL – sometimes I fail to get that down into my inner being….where it counts the most. Through the tragedies, the suffering, the heartaches, ALL of it comes from Him….all of it. And all for our benefit…for our maturing…for our ‘becoming human’.
Yous said: “The day I make a decision to start from a basis other than ME to determine meaning in my life is the day that that meaning has the room it needs to exist.” … and THAT my dear is the whole point of the exercise of life…to get out of the ME AGENDA and allow TRUE MEANING to enter.
Thank you 🙂
In C.S. Lewis’s “Narnia”, the lion, Aslan, is the Christ-figure. In one book a foolish, selfish boy becomes a dragon, much to his horror. Only Aslan can tear away the scales of the dragon’s coat. Powerful scene and connection to this passage.
I’ve longed to engage in this discussion and yet I find that all the words I choose seem to be trivial and trite at best. So much to consider and ponder, and although I understand the “light at the end of the tunnel” I can only sense despair.
Keep preachin’ Skip.
YHWH bless you and keep you……….
Amen to that! I feel the same way. I’ll just be quiet and keep on listening and taking it in…
Double ditto on that point. I listen a lot more these days. Thanks for sharing that because I do feel kind of like a spectator many times. Just absorbing, listening and watching what transpires.
It is a fearful thing to both fall prey to a hungry lion and to fall into the hands of THE living God. At least with the lion you know the next thing you will be is…well, lion dung. What will be of me when God is done? If I wasn’t depressed before (ahh, but I was) I is now. God help me. Bring on the lions…(but let them be satiated ones), for I am afraid, very afraid and weak, very weak, but, alas, I am also fat and slow, and no doubt, tasty from years of excuse and excess. Woe is me. I am about to be undone or dung.
The God I Know
Rule #1) (Adam &Eve..- are you listening?) Never (ever) doubt the goodness of God!! Never (ever) speak of Him (or think of Him) as “less than loving..” Perhaps you have never heard (or fail to believe..) – “for the LORD is good!!!” (And?) His love endures forever.. (And?) His faithfulness remains from generation to generation!!
The list of things God hates (which does NOT include people btw..) is very short. In fact, in can be reduced to only one item.. – God HATES sin! (only). It grieves His heart, the heart of our Father, for any man or woman, anywhere or at any time to sin. – Why? It is because He knows the “end from the beginning” and He knows where sin leads to- (the rest of the story..) Sin ALWAYS ends in death.
~ but each person (each and every individual) is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed ~ Sin is an inside job. The desire (or passion) we possess is not what the problem is- but the “evil” desire is! – and what is evil? – Whatever is outside of the will of God! Our Father knows!- sin leads to multiplied sorrows and problems! Are we blind in both eyes? Can we not look around us and see what sin hath wrought? The debilitating damage is evident, as seen in the individual and in the larger picture- among the citizens of our cities and communities.
~ Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death ~ (James 1.14,15)
But, – is there a solution for sin? The problem has been identified. Half the battle is over, – just in finding the problem. Is there a cure?