Journal

• Please use one of the prompts below to get your journaling started.

  • Explore your fears and what’s behind them.
  • Write about a relational conflict you are experiencing.
  • List out all that you are grateful for.
  • Recall a significant reaction, conversation or event.

   Here are some tools to help you with the devotionals:

  • A Guide to Journaling & Prayer
  • A Guide to Self-Reflection
  • A Chart to help articulate feelings

Bible Passage: Hosea 11:1-9

¹ When Israel was a child, I loved him,

    and out of Egypt I called my son.

² The more they were called,

    the more they went away;

  they kept sacrificing to the Baals

    and burning offerings to idols.

³ Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk;

    I took them up by their arms,

    but they did not know that I healed them.

⁴ I led them with cords of kindness,

    with the bands of love,

  and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws,

    and I bent down to them and fed them.

⁵ They shall not return to the land of Egypt,

    but Assyria shall be their king,

    because they have refused to return to me.

⁶ The sword shall rage against their cities,

    consume the bars of their gates,

    and devour them because of their own counsels.

⁷ My people are bent on turning away from me,

    and though they call out to the Most High,

    he shall not raise them up at all.

⁸ How can I give you up, O Ephraim?

    How can I hand you over, O Israel?

  How can I make you like Admah?

    How can I treat you like Zeboiim?

  My heart recoils within me;

    my compassion grows warm and tender.

⁹ I will not execute my burning anger;

    I will not again destroy Ephraim;

  for I am God and not a man,

    the Holy One in your midst,

    and I will not come in wrath.

Questions to help us go deeper

Reflect on the portrait of God depicted in these passages.

• What is He like?
• Reflect on the ways you have experienced this aspect of God.
• Are there ways that your current view of God needs to be corrected or refined through today’s passage?
• Praise God for who He is.

Prayer