Hosea pursued Gomer.  Gomer didn’t turn.  She kept going.  She kept running.  What does God do?  When God pursues people who run from him, what does he do?  Does God give up?  Does God say, “Well, boys will be boys and girls will be girls.  Just go on ahead.”  No.  God does not say that.  God does not do that.  Here is what God does.

Maybe you are running from him right now.  God does several things when someone runs from him.First of all, God barricades us with briars.   God barricades people who matter to him with briars.  We run.  If we don’t respond to God, then he suddenly puts up this big honking wall of briars.

A couple of weeks ago, my family and I went up to Lake Grapevine.  I parked my truck on this steep embankment  and we made our way down  the woods down this path.  We were hanging out on Lake Grapevine, skipping rocks and the whole deal.  We even had our dogs  with us and our dogs are the size of cattle.  It was a fun time.  As the sun set, we realized that we had to get back to the truck. Being a guy, I said, “I’ll show you the way.”  Well, I am directionally challenged.  I thought I could find the path, but I didn’t find the path.  I led my family into a briar patch.  I’m talking about thorns that were scratching the kids, the dogs, and me.  I still have scars from them.  The dogs were howling.  We were in trouble.  It’s not fun to be stuck by these thorns and all this underbrush.  It’s a bad thing.  Well, we had to turn around and go the opposite way.  Finally, we found the path and we made it back to the truck.

Ed Young Blog: The blanks are there, fill them in.  There is something about blanks we don’t like.