The parable of the Prodigal Father reminds me of the love God expresses in Hosea 11:1-9: "When Israel was a child, I loved him and I called my son out of Egypt." This is the first place in the Old Testament where we hear of God's love as the cause of God's choosing Israel as his people. It is not because of anything that we have done that God loves us. In fact God imagines us here as children who don't even know that he has been a parent caring tenderly for us. The words Hosea puts on God's lips might well be those of the Prodigal Father speaking to us: "How could I part with you! How could I give you up! My compassion grows warm and tender. For I am God, not a mortal, the Holy One in your midst."
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