The Fellowship of His Sufferings (Hosea 1)

Have you ever had a dream for your life, pursued the dream, but only to find that ultimately it shattered into pieces? I have known that experience; and when it happens, it is so hard not to let cynicism, unbelief and low expectations invade you. And it is harder still when you feel that it is God himself who has shattered the dream.

That was Hosea’s experience. The Lord took hold of him during the reigns of King Uzziah of Judea and King Jeroboam of Israel (verse 1), long reigns which brought about a time of prosperity and stability for these two kingdoms - rather like in Western Europe or North America today. Hosea could have reasonably expected to have a comfortable life and, like most Jewish men, he would have dreamed of starting a family with a beautiful young virgin girl. For in his culture only disreputable women had sex before marriage; and I know from my own experience just how beautiful it is when two people marry and have had no previous sexual relationships.

However, Hosea’s encounter with the Lord shattered all this. “Go take to yourself a wife of sexual immorality and children of sexual immorality,” he tells him (verse 3). Yes, the Lord asks Hosea to marry a woman who is effectively a prostitute and who already has children through her immoral sexual relationships! Why did he do this? In order to better understand this, we need to turn to some words of Paul, written nearly 800 years later.

In Philippians 3:4-11 Paul shares how meeting Christ Jesus has completely changed his value system - all the things that at one time he thought were important no longer matter to him. He has new priorities, and a new dream: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (verses 10-11).

I hear many people praying for resurrection power - myself included - and that is a great prayer to pray. But I hear few people praying to know the fellowship of sharing in Christ’s sufferings and to become like him in his death. In our Western societies, where physical wellness and health has become almost a god, this is definitely off the agenda.

Yet before resurrection can come, there must be death. God led Hosea through this experience of suffering because he wanted him to feel what he felt, to experience his sufferings (can it be that God suffers??), so that he would also experience the depth of his love and his resurrection power.

The same principle applies to our dreams: sometimes they have to be shattered and die, in order to be resurrected in a new and better form. Peter had a dream of fighting alongside Jesus and defeating the Jewish and Roman authorities - and he started it off by trying to kill the high priest’s servant - but Jesus shattered this dream, and Peter was left in despair (John 18, Luke 23:62). Yet what rose from the ashes of his shattered dream was far greater, far more than he could ever have imagined: Peter became a leader of a movement which in a few decades turned the world upside down - and is still doing so. But the pain had to come first.

So it was with Hosea too. He had the privilege of understanding and communicating the Lord’s heart at a level that few people ever do; and though he speaks much about judgment, he also brings a message of incredible love and hope. But before he could reach this point, his dreams of a pure marriage and a peaceful family life had to be shattered.

So it is with us also. The Lord Jesus wishes us all to experience much more of his love and his power. But before that can happen, we need to enter into the fellowship of his sufferings. For each of us that experience will be different - few, if any, of us are likely to be called to marry a prostitute and tread the same path as Hosea. In my own life I have instigated Christian ministries, sure that I was following God’s leading, confidently expecting that they would prosper; but they died, shattered into broken pieces. Yet from these broken pieces the Lord has been able to do something far greater, more than I could have imagined, in my life. And he wants to do the same in your life too.