An insightful student calls idolatry “a worship disorder.” It’s an apt description, I think, locating the source of the disease where it belongs—inside a person’s divided heart. That’s always the root of the problem. Moreover, the other gods are no gods at all, so they cannot love or bless the people who serve them. Why follow them? (That’s a head issue.) Yahweh, on the other hand, loves his people and blesses them abundantly. His prescription for their healing is to return to him and let him bind up their self-inflicted wounds, even as they seek to know him anew. God is eager to restore his people when they surrender their revolt against him. Both his hurting and his healing are means of his grace. Indeed, the pain of the former intensifies the joy of the latter.

“Come, let us return to the Lord. 
He has torn us to pieces; 
now he will heal us. 
He has injured us; 
now he will bandage our wounds. 
In just a short time he will restore us, 
so that we may live in his presence. 
Oh, that we might know the Lord! 
Let us press on to know him. 
He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn 
or the coming of rains in early spring.”
Hosea 6:1-3

Thank you, Lord, for your healing grace, especially after a season of stumbles and straying from your ways. Grant me an undeviating spirit to walk with you again in humble and joyful submission for the remainder of my days. Amen.

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