Good morning everyone,

Hosea 5:15-I will return again to my place, until they acknowledge their guilt and seek my face, and in their distress earnestly seek me.

If you felt a sense of true love from your parents, and knew you disappointed them, it was that desire and childlike innocence that made you acknowledge your guilt, and want things to be right again. I’ve realized that unless a child has experienced pursuing love by that parent in spite of mistakes they’ve made, children hesistate to be honest and transparent with them and may not ever. Yet if that parent has displayed a pursuing/unconditional love, children’s hearts are made to respond to the protection and peace that they are still greatly loved, which provokes them to be honest and confess "sins".

Just like a parent’s heart, the Lord’s heart aches when we don’t come to Him in honesty as the perfect Father and parent, it is saying what we think of Him when we hide it. I’m sure we have either experienced it in some way, when the parent asks the child who tries to hide something from them "Why didn’t you just come to me?" The parent is really asking "What do you think of me in not coming to me, or I expect you to come to me". That’s the image of God in us saying, "I expect you to come to me as my child"

Yet many times we learn the depth of love the most from God and people when we "mess up" like the children of Israel did. After seeking their life in every other idol other than God, they still found their Father in a vulnerable place that many parents, especially father’s refuse to acknowledge. God without any pride in this verse is essentially saying, "I want you to acknowledge that you hurt me in leaving me, but come back?" We usually learn the depth of love when we fail in unfaithfulness and come back to God and see that He still loves us deeply. Such love should then makes us want to be faithful to Him because He shows us His vulnerable heart.

In His Love, Ld