Waiting: fruit of repentance

So you, by the help of your God, return,

hold fast to love and justice,

and wait continually for your God.

Hosea 12:6

God, through His prophet Hosea, makes an appeal to His people Israel to return in repentance to Him. This appeal to repentance comes in the midst of God’s indictment against Israel. It is a gracious offer. Israel had a slippery past. God remembered that Jacob, the heel-grabbing conniving patriarch who wrestled with God, had always struggled. He wept and fought with the angel of the Lord, begging God’s favor (Hosea 12:4a). The patriarch met with God in Bethel and there God spoke to Jacob and to all his descendants (Hosea 12:4b). God affirmed His covenant with Jacob, renaming Him and all His future generations “Israel” - strives with God.

It is to this past that God appeals. He wants His people to remember all the good He has done with them even with the baggage of that kind of past. He wants them to repent of their present idolatry, greed and unfaithfulness. He wants to once again help them find His blessing as they obey the covenant. And what God waits for as they return to Him shows us what He expects of people who are committed to faithfulness.

Here is what God wanted of Israel:

1) He wanted them to hold fast to love. Just like Jacob clung to the angel begging for blessing, God wanted Israel to hold fast to love… to love the Law… to love the Lord their God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. Faithful love is worth the tenacity to keep believing God.

2) He wanted them to hold fast to justice. If God’s people love God, they will love His righteousness and want to see it NOW in the world. They will not tolerate the way sin creates inequities, injustices, and awful discriminations. They will want to see sin punished and righteousness exalted. They will want to see sin forgiven and grace rolling like a mighty river through the world.

3) He wanted them to continuously wait on the Lord. To hold fast to love and justice in an unloving and unjust world absolutely REQUIRES we faithfully, patiently wait by faith for God’s will to be done. This insight into waiting is important. God wants me to wait, holding fast in grace to His love, righteousness, and justice. How I wait will show the quality and perseverance of my faith.