The length of time that will transpire during any process that God begins is sometimes very discouraging. If you are standing for a loved one who is in addiction like I was, you will likely have to forgive them on a daily basis. You will face many “last straw” moments that will grind off the edges of your impatience and personal quantities of grace and mercy. Eventually, you may come to the place where you begin to believe that God is giving you permission to say, “Enough is enough. Just let them go and do their thing. I have done everything a person can do and went further than most people.” God might seem to be showing you through the circumstances that He is now taking you in a different direction, and to let them go.

It is was in a similar moment of taking inventory that God showed up in the life of the prophet Hosea. God had told him to go and marry a woman who was known to be a prostitute named Gomer. God even told Hosea that after he married her, she would leave him and have children with other men. But Hosea obeyed what he knew God had asked of him.

They became married and in time, Gomer did leave Hosea, and even sold herself as a prostitute to another man. At this moment in Hosea’s life, he would have every moral and legal right to cut ties with Gomer. But God presented Hosea with another option: He told Hosea to not only be reconciled with Gomer, but to actually buy her back from the man that she had sold herself to! Just let that sink in for a second.

In the new testament, Saul had been a devout Jewish leader, and a strict keeper of the Jewish laws. If anyone could be counted on to always do the lawful thing, it was him. And after the execution of Jesus, he began enforcing their laws on all who were believers in Jesus, even so far as to get legal warrants for their arrest and imprisonment. Their laws stated that death was the penalty for blasphemy, and all who claimed Jesus was the messiah were guilty of that law. Saul began a journey to Damascus with his warrants, and on the way he had an intense encounter with Jesus and Saul’s perspective was changed entirely. He had become so focused on what he believed to be right and legal, but now he began to let go of his opinion and allow God room to present him with another option. God’s principles never change, but the way those principles are applied change with every generation. There are new problems and circumstances that arise in 2023 that would have never been thought of in 35 A.D. The principle is the same, it just looks different now. And whatever the King says becomes law. So obedience to what God is saying now is better than holding onto what He may have said in the past.

Like Hosea, can you choose to obey what might be incredibly uncomfortable and foreign, but have eternal significance towards the person you are praying for? Are you willing to let go of everything you thought you knew about how God works and be open to a new thing? Option B is always a more difficult choice, especially because moral and social standards will ordinarily flex so that you can remain comfortable. Be wise, but be willing to let God change your perspective, because He knows what is best for you and for the person He is drawing near to Him. (For another example of learning to hear what God IS saying and letting go of what He HAD said, see Luke 17:11-19)