“If I were addressing peasants or slaves,” [Reepicheep] said, “I might suppose that this suggestion proceeded from cowardice. But I hope it will never be told in Narnia that a company of noble and royal persons in the flower of their age turned tail because they were afraid of the dark.”
“But what manner of use would it be to plough through that blackness?” asked Drinian.
“Use?” replied Repicheep. “Use, Captain? If by use you mean filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honor and adventure. And here is as great an adventure as ever I heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours.”
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis
Hosea
So on Facebook the other night, I posted this status: “i’m tempted to highlight the entire book of Hosea while reading it tonite. it’s seriously so amazing.”
A friend asked me to share why I wrote this status, so here goes.
As a prelude to my thoughts on Hosea, one of the reasons I chose to read Hosea (besides feeling led to it by the Holy Spirit) was that I wanted to read something where God was talking about himself within the narrative. You know, something in the text where it says, “The LORD says…”, and then he does. There’s plenty of that in Hosea!
This is the first set of verses from Hosea that grabbed my heart as I read:
“How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I treat you like Admah?
How can I make you like Zeboiim?
My heart is changed within me;
all my compassion is aroused.
I will not carry out my fierce anger,
nor will I turn and devastate Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man—
the Holy One among you.
I will not come in wrath.
They will follow the LORD;
he will roar like a lion.
When he roars,
his children will come trembling from the west.” Hosea 11:8-10
First of all, one of the obvious reasons I love this verse is the LORD says that he will roar like a lion, which reminds me of Aslan, who reminds me of Jesus and his strength. LOVE IT!
Secondly, I love the longing I sense in God’s voice in these verses, the passionate love God has for Israel (and for us) when he says that his heart is “changed” within him and that his compassion is aroused and he relents.
But thirdly, and more importantly, these verses (to me at least) reflect the entire book of Hosea, which is this amazing illustration of God’s character (his fully judgmental, wrathful nature and his fully compassionate, passionately loving nature).
There are times in Hosea when God says, “For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no one to rescue them. Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt” and “Therefore I cut you in pieces with my prophets, I killed you with the words of my mouth; my judgments flashed like lightning upon you.” His fury and wrath against his people for turning away from him are complete and thorough.
Then other times he says, “Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will sing as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.” And then, in the verses I began with above, he talks about his compassion being aroused. God’s love, passion, and compassion for his people are complete and thorough.
Some people argue that the Old Testament of the Bible, which is where the book of Hosea is found, only shows the wrathful side of God’s character, because he “smites” people left and right in the Old Testament, whereas the New Testament only shows the loving side of God’s character because he doesn’t do much “smiting”. Now, just presenting a rebuttal to this argument could take up an entire blog post on its own, but I’m not going to go there right now.
My point here is that I love how strongly the book of Hosea itself SHATTERS that argument. I LOVE seeing the full extent (well at least as much as my natural mind can comprehend) of God’s character right there. Fully wrathful and fully loving.
And this is where I start to see things differently than I have in the past. Normally I struggle with understanding and being ok with the fact the God IS wrathful. It doesn’t seem fair, right? Why is he SO harsh and violent, it seems contrary to what would be loving and right, doesn’t it?
But for some reason (probably the Holy Spirit working in my heart), reading through Hosea this time, I’ve been able to see God’s wrath as pure and righteous and a bit awe inspiring really. And, of course, it’s easy to believe that his love and compassion are pure and righteous.
If I had to choose 1 thing from Hosea that I’ve learned while reading it, I would choose this verse from Hosea, “For I am God, and not man— the Holy One among you.” The LORD is the ONE and ONLY God. He created all things and for him all things were created. He IS righteous and HOLY (set apart) and PURE. His motives and any actions that flow out of those motives are righteous. When his fury rages against Israel and he acts out against them, he is RIGHT. When his heart is changed within him and his compassion is aroused and he relents and shows mercy, he is RIGHT. God is GOD and both his wrath and his mercy are PURE and RIGHT. Period.
I know that for the rest of my life, I will not understand this world and I will probably ask God many more times, “why?” Whether that why is regarding the horrible suffering I see, like the famine in east Africa right now, or about the enriched life I am privileged to be living when so many have so little, one thing I can rest in and build my foundation on is that God is RIGHT. Even if I don’t understand or don’t like the way things are, God is RIGHT. His motives and actions are RIGHT, PURE, HOLY and he is RIGHT for allowing things and/or causing things to be the way they are.
And here is the end, God’s own final words to close the book of Hosea. (Understand, I am not using these verses to endorse my own thoughts, I just love them because I am coming to understand them and believe that they are true). You’ll have to read Hosea for yourself to really get the full effect of what these final words are referencing.
“Who is wise? He will realize these things.
Who is discerning? He will understand them.
The ways of the LORD are right;
the righteous walk in them,
but the rebellious stumble in them.”
Props to BibleGateway.com for easy access to all the verses I posted. All verses are from the book of Hosea, NIV 1984 translation of the Bible.
Beyond the Pleasantries
Today at Starbucks, I had this great connect with the guy running the cash register. He heard me humming an Adele song and was like, “I LOVE Adele…”, then we were off on a tangent, trading stories about which covers of Adele by which bands we liked, etc. I gave him the info to look up my favorite Adele cover on Youtube (which he was SO excited to check out), and the conversation ended with him saying, “You just made my day!” to which I responded, “You made MY day.”
I love it when a common interest sparks a conversation and plunges you beyond the pleasantries of “Hi, how are you?” “Good, you?” “Good, thanks. Would you like your receipt?” “Yes please.” “Have a great day!” “Thanks, you too!”
Sometimes I just feel like we all walk around with these fortress walls surrounding us that seem impenetrable, when in reality, all it takes is one little portion of a brick being poked through to connect us.
Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so introverted and had an easier time just reaching out and saying, “What’s up? It’s nice to be alive with you on this planet. For the two minutes that I’ll connect with you today, I want to learn just one more thing about you than knowing that you work at Starbucks.”
Fatiyah: The Old Family Recipe
Fatiyah
Ingredients Needed
-1lb. loaf of frozen dough, thawed
-1lb. ground beef
-1 chopped onion
-1/4 cup pine nuts
-1 tsp. salt
-1/4 tsp. pepper
-juice of 1 fresh lemon (or 1/4 cup lemon juice)
The Filling
Brown meat just until pink is gone. Add onions, nuts and remaining ingredients except lemon. Cook 1 minute longer. Add lemon juice and cool. (Refrigerator if you have time because it will be much drier and easier to work with.).
The Dough
If using frozen bread dough, let thaw for 2 hours, then slice into 12 equal slices. Lay each piece flat on a floured table. Continue to let dough thaw for 1 hour, then pat or roll into bigger circles (dough should be about 1/8 inch thickness). We find that standing up and pushing down on the dough with finger tips to spread it out into circles works best. Avoid pulling on the dough to stretch it, as it more easily causes tears and holes in the dough.
Put it all together and what do you have?
Once you have your nice thin dough circles, put two soup spoonfuls of meat into each circle. Pull the center edges together, and bring the back side of the cirlce up to meet the center edges, pinching dough together to close meat pie. Pinch front side of circle into a point. Each Fatiyah should look like a triangle when finished.
Bake it!
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly oil bottom of cookie sheet. Place Fatiyah on cookie sheet. Cook for 20-25 minutes, and keep an eye on the Fatiyah so they don’t burn.
Eat it!
Devour.
P.S.
If you want to speed up your process and get to the eating part faster. You can always pat/roll your dough a little thicker and make your Fatiyah open faced. Bake it on 400 degrees still but cook time should be much diminished. Just keep an eye on it so the dough doesn’t burn. Once your Fatiyahs come out, they should look like little individual Fatiyah pizza’s. We like to call them Fatizzah!
Jenny Baird 