Hosea 10:12: Seeking the Lord, Clearing your Vision

Hosea 10:12 “Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up your fallow ground, for it is the time to seek the LORD, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”

Driving to Wednesday night prayers a few weeks back I found myself in a brilliant real-life analogy about sowing righteousness and seeking the Lord.  As I got into my car, it began to rain, a gentle and easy rain. I paid it no mind since it had been raining rather frequently like that and I thought that it would sputter out in a few minutes. Nope. It started to rain harder, and harder. It finally got to that point where it is raining as hard as it can without truly storming and there it decided to stay.  My windshield wipers were swishing back and forth, back and forth at a steady rate, clearing my field of vision for a short while until the rain accumulated enough that the next swish cleared it again. Then I was on the freeway. Sharing lanes with semi trucks  and other vehicles changed how I had my windshield wiper settings set. I had to change the frequency of the swipes of the blade. The rain was not coming down any harder but the traffic was spewing the downfall everywhere. Tires from trucks, semis, and even small cars would shoot water that had finally come to rest on the asphalt directly into my vision. My wipers had to swipe faster to keep my vision clear and I had to slow down because of the increase in traffic.

Now what does that have to do with this brilliant analogy? Simple! Think of the windshield wipers. The more obstruction I got in my vision, the more frequent I had to clear it. When we seek God, do our devotions, pray, we are effectively clearing our lives, paths, and vision of obstructions. We clear things up and refocus ourselves. In times where life isn't coming at us too very hard, well we are able to get away with praying a little less, having shorter devotions, and not spend as much time with God. (Admittedly this is not recommended - but thats where the analogy breaks down.)   Its when life starts hitting us with more and more and more that we should, we need to spend more time with God. We may wonder where that time is going to come from, but we absolutely have to do it. Its in those times when we need to see the clearest, to have as little obstruction in our lives as possible and it is in seeking God, His direction, and His righteousness that we clear all obstructions out of our way. If I get into an accident on the freeway because I can't see clearly, it will be my fault but insurance will help take care of the car. If I can't see clearly in life, the consequences are much more dire and there is much less that will “fix” or “repair” the results.

This week lets spend the time while we have it learning how to clear and de-obstruct our vision, our lives, and our walk with God. Soon there will be a time where the practice we have spent in these practices of seeking God and desiring His righteousness will no longer be practice, but necessity. May it become an unthinking habit in your lives and in mine.

Here from the world we turn, Jesus to seek;
Here may His loving voice tenderly speak!
Jesus, our dearest Friend, while at Thy feet we bend,
O let Thy smile descend! ’Tis Thee we seek.