I will betroth you to me forever, . . . in love and compassion. -- Hosea 2:19, NIV.

I think of the Lord longing after us as a lover after his love, for to betroth-to be engaged to marry-assures us of a deep love relationship, a love relationship even beyond what we can experience in this lifetime. How little we consider His great love and longing for us!

As Hosea sold all to purchase Gomer back from a life of degradation in her prostitution that he might take her back as his beloved wife, so also the Lord seeks us in the degradation of our sinful waywardness. He gave all to ransom us back to be His own beloved. This is the relationship of the Lord to His own.

O Lord, I want to respond with a life of love. It is my intent to put You first in my thoughts when I awake; and all day long I delight to read, think, sing, or hear of You whom I love. You fill my life.

When I am prone to complain that He is slow to answer some of my prayers, when it seems He is doing nothing to bring about righteousness in the world, then I can say as did Habakkuk, "Although [all fail], yet I will rejoice in the Lord. . . . The Lord is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds' feet, and he will make me to walk upon . . . high places" (Hab. 3:17-19). His love is steady and unfailing.

I must remind myself how much my Lord Jesus loved the world-loved me, loved you-that He willingly gave His life in the most horrible way, stripped of His clothing and laid on a cross like a criminal and nailed to it. And even then He said, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

The church is His bride, and He the loving bridegroom. What a wonderful thought, what a wonderful truth.