I will heal your wrong ways,
I will love you so freely,
You will dwell beneath My shadow.
I am not my own. 🙏
The Benimar has turned inland to Neufchâtel-en-Bray, in the Pays de Bray — the town whose cheese is shaped like a heart. A fitting place to read about love.
Last night, a closed door. Tonight, Smith sends the one thing no door can close: I will love them freely.
And Smith's line is the whole of it: let us never look into ourselves to find out the cause of God's love — it is in Him, not in us.
Circumstances can change what we plan. They cannot change why He loves us, because the reason was never in us.
And Le answers in God's own voice — then in her own. I will heal your wrong ways, I will love you so freely, you will dwell beneath My shadow. Then four words: I am not my own.
Those four words are the right reply to everything Smith said. If the love is free, and the cause is in Him, then the one loved belongs to the One who loves.
"O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously... I will heal their backsliding, I will love them freely: for mine anger is turned away from him."
Hosea 14:1-2, 4 · KJVThis is the last chapter of Hosea — and it comes after thirteen chapters of grief.
Hosea is the prophet who lived his message. God told him to marry Gomer, who left him. And then, in chapter 3, God told him to go and buy her back — love her, according to the love of the LORD. The prophet who preached God's love had first paid for it with his own.
"Freely." Nedavah. The Hebrew word for a freewill offering — the gift nobody required, given only because the giver wanted to. God's love is not a payment owed. It is His freewill offering to us.
"I will heal their backsliding." Meshuvah — their turning-away. He does not only forgive the wandering. He heals it — treats it as a wound, not only as a crime.
And notice the order. Take with you words — God even supplies the prayer for those who have nothing to bring.
"The Lord loves His people naturally, as parents love their children; freely, without any cause whatever in them. He looks for nothing in them to move Him to love; nor will He allow anything in them to prevent His love... He will love them, though they deserve hatred, merit wrath, and may be justly sentenced to destruction."
James Smith · On Hosea 14:4"He looks for nothing in them to move Him to love; nor will He allow anything in them to prevent His love."
Two sentences, and between them they close every door through which fear gets in. Nothing in us started it. Nothing in us can stop it.
Le — August 24, at Santa Comba Dão: I was mercied because God is merciful. Not because Le was. Because He is. Smith is saying the same thing about love.
Romans 5:8: but God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The proof of love came before any reason for it.
"As parents love their children." Eleven nights ago Le wrote: we are God's children, and He takes care of us. A child does not earn the parent's love by being born. The love was there first.
"Beloved, let us never look into ourselves to find out the cause of God's love — it is in Him, not in us. But let us believe Him when He says, 'I have loved you with an everlasting love.' Let us plead with Him, encouraged by the words of Jesus, 'The Father Himself loves you.'"
James Smith · On Hosea 14:4"I have loved thee with an everlasting love." Jeremiah 31:3 — and the verse continues: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Everlasting at the source. Drawing at the near end.
And Jeremiah wrote it to a people in exile — far from home, their plans undone. The promise of everlasting love was spoken to people who had lost their address.
"The Father Himself loves you." John 16:26-27 — and Jesus says something remarkable just before it: I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you.
Jesus is saying: do not imagine I have to persuade the Father to be kind to you. The Father is not reluctant. He loves you Himself.
"If He will love, who shall forbid Him? If He will love us, who shall dispute with Him? If He loves us, as His Word testifies He does — who shall estimate the honor, the advantage, or the happiness which will eternally flow from His love? All glory to free grace."
James Smith · On Hosea 14:4"Who shall forbid Him?" Smith is echoing Romans 8 — the chapter Le finished at Henvic, at the end of the earth: If God be for us, who can be against us?... Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?
Le, September 6: "I am persuaded means convinced. His very experiences convinced him." Paul's list of things that cannot separate us included things present, nor things to come. A closed door is a thing present. The unknown next one is a thing to come. Neither is on the list of things that can reach His love.
"All glory to free grace." Smith ends where Le ended nine nights ago: to God be the glory forever and ever. 🙏
"I will be as the dew unto Israel: he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots as Lebanon. His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree... They that dwell under his shadow shall return; they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine."
Hosea 14:5-7 · KJVLe wrote the next verses of Hosea without reading them. You will dwell beneath My shadow — verse 7: they that dwell under his shadow shall return.
"Under his shadow." Psalm 91:1, five nights ago: he that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. The same shelter, found again in a different book.
"His beauty shall be as the olive tree." Two nights ago, Romans 11: the root bears thee. The olive tree again — and here it is God who makes the branch beautiful.
"I will be as the dew." Dew does not fall in a storm. It comes quietly in the night, and in the morning everything is wet with it. New every morning.
"What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 · KJV"Ye are not your own." Le's four words are Paul's.
"Ye are bought with a price." And that is Hosea's story exactly. Hosea 3:2: so I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley. Gomer was not her own either. She had been redeemed — paid for, by a husband who would not let her go.
Hosea paid in silver and barley. Christ paid in blood. 1 Peter 1:18-19: ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold... but with the precious blood of Christ.
"Not my own" is not a loss. It is a rescue. Romans 14:8, which Le read at Sword Beach: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's.
And it is the right answer to a closed door. If we were our own, every closed door would be our failure. We are not our own — so our next door, too, belongs to Him. 🙏
"I will heal your wrong ways, I will love you so freely, you will dwell beneath My shadow. I am not my own."
Le · Neufchâtel-en-Bray, Normandy · October 8, 2026 · Bought back like Gomer, held like a child, sheltered under His shadow — not our own, and glad of itNedavah — Freely
The word for a freewill offering — the gift no one required. God's love is not a debt He pays. It is His gift.
Hosea Bought Her Back
The prophet who preached God's love first paid for it with his own. Love her, according to the love of the LORD.
I Am Not My Own
Bought with a price — as Hosea bought Gomer back. Not a loss, a rescue. Even the next door belongs to Him.
Who Shall Forbid Him?
Things present, things to come — neither can reach His love. The cause was never in us, so nothing in us can end it.