Work

O people of Israel, do not rejoice as other nations do. For you have been unfaithful to your God, hiring yourselves out like prostitutes, worshiping other gods on every threshing floor. So now your harvests will be too small to feed you. There will be no grapes for making new wine. [Hosea 9.1-2]

I am going to make a completely uneducated observation today about this scripture. However, there is something in this scripture that I believe transcends knowledge.

I am sure there are facts about a threshing floor that make it ideal of worshiping other gods. Perhaps the arrangement of everything made it the logical place to conduct such an activity as worshiping idols.

However, there are some words in the passage above that give me reason to think there is an obvious lesson that we must not miss. Work.

Notice that God's accusation in this passage likens Israel's unfaithfulness to work: "hiring yourselves out like prostitutes..." But it goes further by describing Israel's sin in the context of a place of work - a threshing floor.

Maybe there is nothing to it, but there could certainly be something worth considering about our work being our place of idolatry - our work being the beginning of our faithlessness to God - our work being the place we first start to trust ourselves and our own efforts instead of God.

Not many verses beyond the passage above, Gibeah is mentioned as the place where Israel's sin really began. Gibeah was, in a word, perverted. Is it possible that the simple trust in our own efforts that begins at work is the first step in a progression that eventually leads to perverted sexual activity?

Is it not worth considering?

Father, help me to trust You and You alone. Help me to see that even my own work is YOUR work and so the blessings that come from it are blessings from YOU!