“Oh, that we might know the Lord! Let us press on to know him. He will respond to us as surely as the arrival of dawn or the coming of rains in early spring.”  - Hosea 6:3

When you are in love, you long to share who you are. You want your beloved to know your passions and your deep thoughts, admire your skills and talents, understand your pain, and work with you toward your goals. You may be reluctant at times to share parts of yourself because transparency makes you vulnerable to rejection. But ideally in that deep-down place of dreaming, you want to be known and appreciated for who you are. That’s why heart to heart, gaze into the eyes romance is a relentless human longing. Everyone wants to connect.

God has the same desire. In fact that’s why He made people in His image—to be known and appreciated for who He is. He has shared His passions and His thoughts with us so we can know Him. He does praiseworthy things so we can praise His power and wisdom and works. He spoke His grief through the prophets so we could understand His pain in broken relationships. He called us into His mission so we could work with Him toward His goals. He has not been reluctant to share Himself with us, even though any transparency on His part exposes Him to our rejection. The risk of rejection is worth the love of His creation. This is why we were made. God, like us, wants to connect. 

The promise of Hosea 3:6—and really of scripture as a whole—is that if we choose to “press on to know Him,” God will respond to us with His availability and love. Press on in whatever way you can think of, knowing God longs to share who He is. When your heart is pressing in to Him, His response will be as certain as the dawn.