Hosea 2:14-15
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth, as at the time when she came out of the land of Egypt.”
How full of conviction these two sentences are! As I read this morning, the Lord revealed so much about HIS GOODNESS in the midst of my DARKNESS AND IDOLATRY.
Heading into the wilderness is such an overwhelming and scary concept. Yet, I know that it is holy. Jesus was called to the wilderness by the Holy Spirit for 40 days. If I am to live as Christ, I must be willing to trust and be led there as well. Entering into a wilderness is entering into an uninhabited land; places where I have haven’t gone before. AND YET, God graciously promises that it is in those places where he will speak tenderly and kindly over me.
The Hebrew word for tenderly/kind is “leb” – defined in the Blue Letter Bible as a myriad of things, namely:
–Inner self, midst, heart, should, seat of appetites, emotions, passion and courage
–It stems from the primitive Hebrew word “lebab” – to ravish, become intelligent, take heart,
Enlighten
How encouraging that as he leads me to a place of uncomfortable – he immediately speaks enlightenment and encouragement to those places in my inner most being; the places of my heart that create my desires, emotions and passions. I must admit that I have always wondered about the book of Psalm (37:4) claiming that if we delight ourselves in the Lord, God gives us the desires of our heart. But this shows his greater plan of blessing us to receive and be ignited by the desires of HIS heart over our lives! However, it necessitates, that I FOLLOW and ALLOW him to take me to places I would otherwise not choose to go. Not only follow (which in my heart often looks like me sulking, kicking and screaming) but follow him into the wilderness with DELIGHT!!! Wow! This looks a lot like exercising my faith that I profess with my mouth so often. Lord, give me courage to walk into the wilderness with delight in my ABBA!!
But he is not done!! He promises in verse 15 to give us vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. Why is this of importance?
The Valley of Achor (Joshua 7), is known as the place where Achan, an Israelite, was stoned and burned (along with his sons and daughters – and from my interpretation they also included his sheep, oxen, donkeys, tent and everything he owned!!) because he coveted silver, gold and beautiful mantel when the Israelites raided Jericho and were told to destroy everything. WHEW!! This is wear following Christ becomes brutiful – Beautifully brutal.
You see, Israel as a nation had just lost the capture of the city of Ai, and has Joshua lamented to God the loss and questioned why the Lord would ask them to enter into just a defeat, the Lord revealed that someone had stolen “devoted things” and was hiding them……idolatry anyone? In reading this story, I thought “Geez, God! It’s just one family out of thousands – do you really need to have Achan publicly confess his sin, and then stone and burn everyone and everything related to him?” Silence. Deep breath.
“Yes.” He replied.
“Under the new covenant, you, as an individual are my Israel – my dwelling place. And my love for you is so fierce, my heart for you to be clean, shameless and set apart so important, that I would tear down any idol in your life, burn it, stone it, rip if off of you in order to save you and bring you into my garden of promises.
It might hurt. In fact, you may feel like you are going to literally die – but I give you a promise of making the wilderness, the Valley of Achor (which means extreme trouble by the way) a door of HOPE!
My promise of healing is more thorough than you know. The places that I have for you to inhabit are without false idols and false promises. But in order to prevent you from devoting your heart to the lies, you must walk away from comfort, lean into the places where I call you, and allow me to convict your heart. With conviction, comes confession, and with confession, healing. Allow me to lead you into a space where there is nothing preventing me from pouring my Spirit into you.”
Let’s play two truths and a lie! Never played before? It’s simple – of the 3 statements listed below, you have to pick out which 2 are truthful, and which one is a lie! 
Various studies have shown a deficiency of sodium in the diet can stimulate the body’s salt-sparing response in an effort to preserve normal blood pressure levels. While this instinctive response of the body is a helpful mechanism in the short term, being in salt-sparing mode over a prolonged period of time can led to a slue of health consequences such as insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and even cognitive loss (Satin 2012).