Lyrics:
I followed Your guidance. I hung on Your every word. I did as You told me, and God, how I hurt.
When I asked for her hand, it filled me with hope. I figured she love me and that was why You bid me go.
I adorned her with gold, and I fulfilled all her dreams. I showered her with all my affection. I spared no room for greed
Oh God don’t let me go. I cannot love the way You’ve called.
I heard all the whispers of how my bride, my dear bride, conceived of our children by some other’s bedside.
And oh how the rumors do flow from all those who seek to destroy reputations. They come out in droves.
Oh God, don’t let me go. I cannot love the way You’ve called.
Can she not remember how i pulled her from the brothel? She stood up by my side, but now runs to other lovers.
Oh God, don’t let me go. I cannot love the way You’ve called.
Her lovers all betrayed. They sold her as a slave. So I bought her back to me. With love I set her free.
Explanation:
My goal with this song was to capture the heart of Hosea as he followed through with what God called him to do. Loving someone who does not return that same love is one of the most difficult things a person can do. When you offer everything you have to give and that person more or less spits in your face, thinks they can do it better or find someone better, it is extremely difficult to continue loving that person.
This song is meant to capture Hosea’s need to rely on the grace of God to love the way that he knows he has been called to love. He cannot understand why he is going through this, but he is praying for the strength to follow through.
In the end, God grants him the strength and the ability to redeem his love once she realizes how she got caught up in a web of deceit and trusting other people who wanted nothing but to use her.
In a way, this song also captures the moment of Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. He asks God to take away the cup, but ultimately trusts God’s will. I think that some of Christ’s difficulty dealt with this idea that He was about to offer is everything, a perfect gift, a perfect sacrifice, and still people would be asking for more. Christ needed the strength to follow through with what He knew was ultimately the only way to demonstrate His love for us.
Understanding how Hosea felt and putting it into words helps me understand how my Savior feels when I try to use things other than Himself to make me feel whole. I turn to other things and trust them to fill me up the way that Christ does, and they can’t even begin to try. Christ still demonstrates His love and faithfulness even when I do not.
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