READ
Hosea 10
CONSIDER
Read all of this week's passage together, and consider the following questions.
When we are wandering straight down the path to destruction, God will post a sign to turn back to Him. Dr. Ueckert identified six signposts of God's heart wanderers experience:
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord exponentially increases the consequences of our wandering so that we feel the emptiness of a focus on self.
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord allows our wickedness to spread like poisonous weeds, devouring every beautiful thing.
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord catalyzes through our sin the reality of shame that promotes in us a desire for covering that shame.
→When we wander, he judges our sins so that we feel as if our very soul has been captured and enslaved because God wants us to see that there's a way home.
→When we wander God gives us a sense of what could be if we turned to him.
→A return to your senses, come home.
Consider each of these signposts with the questions below.
1. Recall a time you were wandering from God. Do you remember a fixation on self? How did it show up in your life?
2. God allows wickedness to spread in our lives as a signpost pointing to His heart. Does this challenge your understanding of God's goodness? Explain.
3. How do you personally experience shame? To help you consider this question, think about a time when you knew you avoiding God.
--What kind of shame did you feel in that season?
--When you consider shame now, where do you experience it in your body? (Gut, head, heart, etc.)
-How did that shame shape the way you related to God, and did it push you away or draw you back?
4. What does it feel like to be enslaved to yourself?
-How does God use this experience of bondage to self to bring you back to enslavement to Christ?
5. Have you ever noticed how your mind drifts into imagining how things could be—how relationships could be better, how that room could be prettier, how your job could be better, how you could be more whole, how the world could be more right?
That ability to picture something better is uniquely human. No other creature dreams of restoration, or longs for a future it can't yet see.
Why do you think God made us this way?
6. This longing—this ability to imagine something more—is actually a way He wired us to sense that things are not as they should be, and to turn our hearts toward Him, the only One who can make all things new? What have you been longing for lately, and how might that be pointing you back home to God?
PRAY
Lord, we thank you for signposts along paths of destruction that point us back to you. How kind you are!
READ
Hosea 10
CONSIDER
Read all of this week's passage together, and consider the following questions.
When we are wandering straight down the path to destruction, God will post a sign to turn back to Him. Dr. Ueckert identified six signposts of God's heart wanderers experience:
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord exponentially increases the consequences of our wandering so that we feel the emptiness of a focus on self.
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord allows our wickedness to spread like poisonous weeds, devouring every beautiful thing.
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord catalyzes through our sin the reality of shame that promotes in us a desire for covering that shame.
→When we wander, he judges our sins so that we feel as if our very soul has been captured and enslaved because God wants us to see that there's a way home.
→When we wander God gives us a sense of what could be if we turned to him.
→A return to your senses, come home.
Consider each of these signposts with the questions below.
1. Recall a time you were wandering from God. Do you remember a fixation on self? How did it show up in your life?
2. God allows wickedness to spread in our lives as a signpost pointing to His heart. Does this challenge your understanding of God's goodness? Explain.
3. How do you personally experience shame? To help you consider this question, think about a time when you knew you avoiding God.
--What kind of shame did you feel in that season?
--When you consider shame now, where do you experience it in your body? (Gut, head, heart, etc.)
-How did that shame shape the way you related to God, and did it push you away or draw you back?
4. What does it feel like to be enslaved to yourself?
-How does God use this experience of bondage to self to bring you back to enslavement to Christ?
5. Have you ever noticed how your mind drifts into imagining how things could be—how relationships could be better, how that room could be prettier, how your job could be better, how you could be more whole, how the world could be more right?
That ability to picture something better is uniquely human. No other creature dreams of restoration, or longs for a future it can't yet see.
Why do you think God made us this way?
6. This longing—this ability to imagine something more—is actually a way He wired us to sense that things are not as they should be, and to turn our hearts toward Him, the only One who can make all things new? What have you been longing for lately, and how might that be pointing you back home to God?
PRAY
Lord, we thank you for signposts along paths of destruction that point us back to you. How kind you are!
READ
Hosea 10
CONSIDER
Read all of this week's passage together, and consider the following questions.
When we are wandering straight down the path to destruction, God will post a sign to turn back to Him. Dr. Ueckert identified six signposts of God's heart wanderers experience:
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord exponentially increases the consequences of our wandering so that we feel the emptiness of a focus on self.
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord allows our wickedness to spread like poisonous weeds, devouring every beautiful thing.
→When we wander from the Lord, the Lord catalyzes through our sin the reality of shame that promotes in us a desire for covering that shame.
→When we wander, he judges our sins so that we feel as if our very soul has been captured and enslaved because God wants us to see that there's a way home.
→When we wander God gives us a sense of what could be if we turned to him.
→A return to your senses, come home.
Consider each of these signposts with the questions below.
1. Recall a time you were wandering from God. Do you remember a fixation on self? How did it show up in your life?
2. God allows wickedness to spread in our lives as a signpost pointing to His heart. Does this challenge your understanding of God's goodness? Explain.
3. How do you personally experience shame? To help you consider this question, think about a time when you knew you avoiding God.
--What kind of shame did you feel in that season?
--When you consider shame now, where do you experience it in your body? (Gut, head, heart, etc.)
-How did that shame shape the way you related to God, and did it push you away or draw you back?
4. What does it feel like to be enslaved to yourself?
-How does God use this experience of bondage to self to bring you back to enslavement to Christ?
5. Have you ever noticed how your mind drifts into imagining how things could be—how relationships could be better, how that room could be prettier, how your job could be better, how you could be more whole, how the world could be more right?
That ability to picture something better is uniquely human. No other creature dreams of restoration, or longs for a future it can't yet see.
Why do you think God made us this way?
6. This longing—this ability to imagine something more—is actually a way He wired us to sense that things are not as they should be, and to turn our hearts toward Him, the only One who can make all things new? What have you been longing for lately, and how might that be pointing you back home to God?
PRAY
Lord, we thank you for signposts along paths of destruction that point us back to you. How kind you are!