God who?

In the 2nd chapter of Hosea, we get a more clear picture of how Israel's relationship with God was. The 1st chapter talks of how God would not protect them from bow or sword and it continues into chapter 2 in vs 2-3 where it says, "Plead with your mother...lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst." It draws the picture of a nation that is vulnerable. It is like God has taken everything from them in order to show their misplaced trust. The Israelites were not relying on God for their needs. They gave credit to Baal. Thomas McComiskey writes in his commentary that they would place idols of Baal in their fields because it would make the harvest more plentiful. God would give and they would praise Baal. Vs. 5 says, "For she said, 'I will go after my lovers who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.' " She gives credit to her lovers when it is really God who gives. Then in vs. 13 God says, "And I will punish her for the feast days of the Baals when she burned offerings to them and adorned herself with her ring and jewelry, and went after her lovers and forgot me. I have always had a hard time relating idol worship with my every day struggles, but one thing I can relate to is forgetting God. Earlier today I drove by a gas station and I saw that gas was 2.85 and it really made me feel secure. I find comfort more in low gas prices than in the knowledge that God provides for me financially. I forget how much God provides just like Israel thought that some stupid idol would make their harvest more plentiful. Why do we think that something we create would provide for us rather than the one who created us? We forget God.
Proverbs 3:12 says, "for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights." Through vs 14-23 we see God's great love for the nation of Israel. It speaks of how God will "allure her, and bring her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor (trouble) a door of hope." In vs 18 it says, "And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety." This reminds me of Psalm 23 how it talks about God as our shepherd and how he makes us lie down in green pastures and leads us by still waters. It is through punishment that God draws us back to Him. It is when that relationship is made right that we have that peace in our lives. It is when we walk by him that He leads us by still waters. And even in the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil because God is with me. This is the God we forget. This is the God we wander from, and it is God's love that draws us back to Him.
"And I will have mercy on No Mercy, and I will say to Not My People, You are my people; and he shall say, 'You are my God.' "