Tehillah Generation Chapel
Daily Manna | Friday, May 25, 2018 | Topic: Conscience 28
Scripture: My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. Hosea 4:6
Note: Hosea’s marriage to Gomer was a typical example of a failing marriage between a man of God and his wife. The love relationship had turned sour after the birth of their first child. Later considerations in the book of Hosea pointed to a challenging marriage where Gomer was seen missing the gifts of clothing, jewellery, corn, wine, oil, silver, gold, wool, flax, vines and fig trees, which she obtained from her previous, multiple lovers who lavished her abundantly with these fleeting gifts in exchange for making love with her.
Many of such failing marriages abound in the Church. Many marriages are virtually hanging on the thin thread of children that they have between them. There’s no love existing anymore between husband and wife. The bigger interest of the children becomes the knot that now ties them together. This situation is completely different from the two lovers who initially made their vows in front of the many visible witnesses on earth as well as the invisible witnesses in heaven. The marriage vows have largely been abandoned as some sort of an ancient relic that belonged to the museums of their past.
After their first child, Hosea and Gomer were still sticking together in marriage probably because Hosea had become a popular preacher, a celebrity by virtue of his constant rebuke that was brought to bear heavily on the nation. The relationship between them was now more about protecting the newly acquired public image of the man of God rather than love binding them together. The desire to look good before people whilst their home was in tatters, a far cry from being the models they seemed to the people they pastor. Protecting a false image becomes the topmost priority masking a farce of a marriage.
Stage managed public smiles and false pretenses become the farcical poster pictures that are presented to the Church and the unsuspecting public. Prayer between husband and wife is dead. The word of God practically ceases to become the unifying final authority between husband and wife. In place are anger, intolerance, unforgiveness and bitterness. The relationship suffers quiet pain often endured by the one who had been hurt. Husbands refuse to accept responsibility for the failure except for the long list in the deep and dark recesses of their minds, comprising a litany of complaints, some older than the children between them. Wives become depressed, feeling lonely and rejected, yet, she’s required to publicly put up and cover up for a husband who has failed her and also failed to take up responsibility to restore the relationship to its state of glory due to pride.
Food for thought: God’s word and prayer are the basic building blocks and answer to a dormant, ineffective and failing love in marriages.
Declaration: But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word. Acts 6:4
©Author: Rev Fred Aboe
