God explains the circumstances and methods of faith trials by which he will accomplish his purpose to deliver His people by his own strength. He “will hedge up thy way with thorns”. (Hosea 2:6)
In the symbolisms of Hosea’s children “Ammi” (i.e Israel, my Sons, my people or nation); and “Ruhamah” (my daughters or God’s Spirit) God pleads against their mother’s (spiritual) “whoredom”, saying “Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst”. God also accuses the “children of whoredom” because “their mother hath played the “harlot”, and done “shamefully”. (Hosea 2:1-5). Here God is recalling Eve’s lusting and believing Satan over God, a disobedience that also snares her children in transgression.
Thus, as descendants of eve, to redeem you unto salvation by faith trials, God “will hedge up [ones] way with thorns, and make a wall, that [you] shall not find [your] paths”. (Hosea 2:6). Why would God do this? He will do this to help you understand that He is the provider of the material things (e.g. corn, wine, oil, silver and gold) which one idolises.
In hedging one’s way toward salvation and relationship, God will also cause all your mirth and causes for celebrations to cease including the religious traditions or the worship of God; as He will not delight in them. Further he will make your income unsustainable and turn loved ones from you. (Hosea 2:11-13)
The goal is to recover the material lusts and take away His favour of supply that consumes one so that your lovers will see your nakedness, but none can deliver you from God’s hand. All the things that you adore and seek after (your “lovers”), shall elude you and you shall not find them. In this state, you shall say “I will go and return to my first husband [God]; for then was it better with me than now”. (Hosea 2:6-11). The trial would be so intense that it will cause you to reflect on your own limitation and on the mercies of God.
Brethren consider that such trials would usually befall people who are God-loving and god fearing people but who are in the way of the world, and God desires to redeem them to a spiritual realisation of who He really is. When God hedges your way with “thorns” and closes your “paths”, one encounters trials for building one’s relationship with God.
This occurs, because out of His love for you, God himself will seek to deliver you from the trappings an influences of the worldly passions and material satisfaction that may impact on your spiritual life. Such trials are designed to humble one and cause you to recognise the grace and mercy of God than own might, and of His generosity that sustains us in life.
