Tag Archives: book

Learning From The Marriage Of Hosea | A 4th Year Wedding Anniversary Special

Posted on by

Hello, everyone! This has long been overdue because August, for me, was the busiest month. I had to juggle several responsibilities at the same time. I thank the Lord, though, because when September ushered in, I was able to “breathe a little.” Thus, this article. 😉

I am writing this blog post to commemorate our 4th year wedding anniversary last month. Hubby and I celebrated it with a simple dinner and some well-deserved pampering.

I guess that’s what really happens when you’re getting older. Any free time you get, you would rather choose to spend it by resting. 😀 We do hang out, though, with our families and friends every now and then just to maintain balance.

Why Hosea?

2019-10-04-14-08-12.jpg

I encountered the story of Hosea in the Love Dare book lent to me by my Victory group leader last year when I was going through tough times in my marriage. I diligently followed every dare in the book, and there were times a dare would move me to tears because I was so convicted.

2019-10-04-14-25-47.jpg

How could I not know the right way to respond as a Christian wife in the relational conflicts between me and my husband?

The book just laid bare everything vulnerable, crooked, and imperfect inside me. With them all exposed, however, I was able to deal with the real issues behind some of the conflicts I had with my husband.

20190709_131936.jpg

One of them is fear. I was so driven by it that little did I know the enemy is already using it against me and my husband to his advantage and to destroy God’s beautiful promises for us. It’s just timely that this year’s wedding anniversary reminded me once again of our Bible verse during our wedding back in 2015:

“Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced His perfect love.” – 1 John 4:18

Next, it was lack of faith. While doing the dare, there were instances where I felt a part of me was wrestling against doing it.

2019-10-04-14-16-10.jpg

What I discovered is that I wasn’t humble enough as I claim to be, and there is still pride lurking deep down. I still relied on my own efforts when dealing with tough relational issues instead of trusting God, for one.

20190720_103310.jpg

The Love Dare book didn’t just reveal parts of me that I needed to work on, but it also showed me how to better appreciate my spouse and his efforts to make our marriage work. I am sure you are curious by now to find out if it indeed resulted in a more positive and healthy relationship between me and my husband.

20190629_162759.jpg

I can say that it did, for the most part, and yet for the majority of the changes, they did not happen overnight. They all required a great deal of discipline in order to see satisfying results. I am just grateful that both my husband and I are willing to work on our marriage regardless of the amount of effort and sacrifice it requires. Yes, we are still a work in progress, and God is definitely not done with us yet.

20190709_132329.jpg

When I did the dares in the book, I decided not to wait for my husband to change first before I follow suit. If he does or doesn’t change, that is between him and God. But God’s calling for me is that I change now.

Will I recommend the book?

Definitely.

I am sure any husband or wife out there can relate with every dare in the book 100%, and if you’re going through rough seasons in your marriage, I highly recommend it. It’s also included in the Fireproof movie hubby and I watched a couple of years ago. I already have an idea of what the book was all about, but doing the dares, yourself, is an entirely different case.

2019-10-04-14-14-04.jpg

Who is Hosea?

Hosea, in the Bible, is a prophet who was called by God to marry a prostitute. The story revolves around the prophet’s obedience to God in the midst of adultery, which was prevalent in God’s people during those times.

After getting married and having children, Hosea’s wife left him and unfortunately went back to prostitution. This was a very heart-wrenching experience to the prophet. It extremely tore him apart and yet, God asked him to do the most difficult task – ask her to return to him as his wife.

After leaving Hosea and going back to prostitution, Gomer (Hosea’s wife), got herself into undesirable circumstances and was sold as a slave. Hosea, though, still loves her. So, when God instructed Hosea to buy his wife back, he obeyed. He dismissed his own pain as seeing her would probably mean bringing back all the hurt of her leaving him and her sexual promiscuity with different men.

Gomer was full of remorse when Hosea bought her, but he did it on one condition – that she will completely let go of her past sins as a prostitute and repent.

What can we learn from Hosea?

God used the marriage of Hosea to Gomer as a representation of His unending love for His people despite their sinfulness and disobedience. God will continue to make all efforts to bring His people back to Him because that is what He is, He is love.

And there’s just no greater avenue to display the love of God than in a marriage. 1 Corinthians 13 portrays who God is as love, but there are other passages in the Bible that also describe what love ought to be such as loving your enemies and your neighbors as yourself.

The Lesson Of Hosea In A Marriage

When we love our enemies whom we don’t have a close relationship with, we sure can deal with it easily. But in a marriage, it is a tad more difficult and requires greater faith and more grace. To share one roof and sleep beside your enemy is already challenging enough. What more to love whom you disdain every single day?

Yes, there will be times in your marriage wherein you’ll feel you married your worst enemy. Your spouse can be your worst enemy because he/she knows so much about your weaknesses that nobody else does. And yet it doesn’t have to be that way if you choose to see your spouse in a different light.

This is where we can apply the lesson of Hosea’s love story. Just as God will choose to give chances to His people no matter how grave their sins are, then we, too, should do the same. When we were called to be married, God called us to love our spouses just like what Hosea did.

Every Marriage Was Orchestrated By God

I don’t believe in coincidences nor the idea that God does things based on trial and error just like in marriages. I believe that every marriage was orchestrated by God for us to fulfill a certain task. We are the only ones who can determine what these tasks are when we ask God sincerely and devote ourselves to obeying Him and His instructions completely.

Whether our marriages are failing, surviving, or thriving, God has a purpose for it, and this purpose will vary depending on each and every couple. My purpose in my marriage might be different than Hosea’s or any married couple out there. But they all have one goal – to display God’s unending love because that is who He is and that is who He wants us to know and follow.

This is why I don’t judge married couples whether they have God-centered marriages or not for now. Through the story of Hosea, I have surmised that we are not in the position to judge whether a marriage will last or not or decide for a person who he/she must marry. Because every marriage will go through seasons and in these seasons, God will use circumstances to fulfill His greater plans.

It Is A Calling

A marriage is a calling. The choice to marry a person doesn’t merely happen by chance, and it isn’t based on our own free will alone. God also has a hand in it. When I was single, I would read articles on who to marry or what is the type of guy/girl who will fit your personality. And yet reading the story of Hosea changed my perspective on relationships and marriages. It called for an understanding beyond legalism and pre-set doctrines that the world has dictated.

The Bible did state to never be yoked with an unbeliever. My interpretation, however, is that it should be taken with a grain of salt, and it depends on a case-to-case basis. What if the same calling similar to Hosea’s happens now in our generation? As a church, we can only respond to it with prayers. We can never judge because we don’t know what God has planned for a certain couple.

All we know is that it is in a marriage that God calls us to exhibit the greatest of them all – LOVE. We should always remember, too, that no marriage is ever a failure in God’s eyes as long as we seek His counsel on how to run our marriages. 🙂

20190818_225258.jpg

Always the goofy husband, when he’s in the mood. lol 😉

Called by God to be a Christian wife in every circumstance,

NewBlogSignature_edited_edited

Classics: Of Reading and Writing

Posted on by

While fixing my stuff, I came across an old textbook of mine we used way back undergraduate days. I browsed through it and while flipping its pages, something caught my eye. It was an excerpt and then I found yet another excerpt from major names in the field of literature. Beautiful essays, they are. I thought I’d share it with you just to have an idea where my passion for reading and writing came from. But in intellectual discussions and conversations, I merely listen. I listen, then I write. 😉

getty_francis_bacon

Engraving of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, writer, lawyer, and statesman. His philosophy of science concerning the use of inductive reasoning for scientific inquiry had a significant influence on later scientific methods of investigation.

OF STUDIES by Francis Bacon (excerpt)

Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight is in privateness and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience: for natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning, by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them; for they teach not their own use; but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores [Studies pass into and influence manners]. Nay, there is no stone or impediment in the wit but may be wrought out by fit studies; like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises. Bowling is good for the stone and reins; shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man’s wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he must begin again. If his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores [splitters of hairs]. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers’ cases. So every defect of the mind may have a special receipt.

WHAT IS A CLASSIC? by Charles Augustin Saint-Beuve (excerpt)

A true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step; who has discovered some moral and not equivocal truth, or revealed some eternal passion in that heart where all seemed known and discovered; who has expressed his thought, observation, or invention, in no matter what form, only provided it be broad and great, refined and sensible, sane and beautiful in itself; who has spoken to all in his own peculiar style, a style which is found to be also that of the whole world, a style new without neologism, new and old, easily contemporary with all time.

This last one was my professor’s paraphrased version of Francis Bacon’s “Of Studies.”  I loved her own style in rewriting it.

Of Studies by Francis Bacon

Studies are for amusement, for showing off one’s education in social institutions and for getting along with skill. For the purpose of amusement, studies are for occupying one’s private, leisure moments. For social situations, studies will allow one to show off how well he can engage in conversations. Studies can also help one make the right decisions, but only within each one’s limited field of expertise. But for more extensive advice and ideas on how to manage in different situations, the advice of the learned may be taken from different readings.

To spend all of one’s time doing nothing but studying is a form of laziness.To display how well-read one is in conversations is a form of pretentiousness or vanity. But to base one’s judgment on what one has learned from reading is all at the same time the sudden whim, the source of excitement and activity and usual habit of a scholar.

The writings of learned men show a way of improving oneself. These writings contain good advice which have been derived from experiences. The natural tendencies and abilities of man may be improved, disciplined or controlled by the knowledge gained from reading. Studies serve as a tool for self-discipline in the same way that pruning makes a plant grow better. Readings in themselves may give too many ideas, directions or advice. But they are to be taken according to how they have been used according to the writer’s experience and according to to how they can be used according to the readers’experiences.

Cunning men look down on what they read. They do not generally put a value on reading. Men of lesser intelligence admire what they read. Readings do not limit their value to teaching how valuable they are or how useful they are. Instead, they teach lessons and even encourage readers to observe and discover truths beyond those contained in the readings themselves.

Do not read only to argue against and disagree with everything that has been read. But do not accept and believe everything that has been read. Do not read for the sake of finding something that can be talked about. Read to understand and consider the value of what was read.

Books are food for the mind – some are to be tasted, meaning, read only its parts; some are to be swallowed, meaning they should be completely read without thinking deeply about their contents; and some books are to be chewed and digested, meaning they should be carefully analyzed, understood and appreciated. Books may sometimes be read through digests, summaries or commentaries prepared by others, but these are good only for less important ideas and works. Not reading a book completely and directly, and relying only on the summaries made by others deprive the reader of the full flavor, full essence and full mental nourishment that can be had from a thorough reading of the work. This can be compared to drinking distilled water, which is purified or strained. It is still essentially water, but all the flavor and mix of mineral elements are missing.

Reading makes a man well-rounded or well-developed. Discussion makes him alert and responsive. Writing makes him an accurate and critical thinker.

Sources:

http://grammar.about.com/od/60essays/a/studiesessay.htm

http://www.bartleby.com/32/202.html

Communication Skills, UP Open University