For she said, ‘I will go after my lovers; they give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’ Therefore I will hedge her way with thorns; and I will build a wall against her, so that she cannot find her paths. She shall pursue her lovers, but not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them. Then she shall say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now.’ (Hosea 2: 5-7)

Are our difficulties caused by God? Are the hedges and thorns of our lives a form of divine discipline?

This is a reasonable reading of Hosea and many of the prophetic writings.

But I wonder: Does God intervene to complicate our ill-chosen path or is our path difficult because it is ill-chosen?

When I was young I spent many days walking a wilderness. After a few years the best animal paths and open fields were well known.

But occasionally I chose the adventure of some clearly difficult and unknown way. Twice I became seriously lost.

I did not blame the wilderness for the difficulty. I recognized the difficulty was the consequence of my own decisions.

Above is The Thorny Path and the Water of Light by Michael Avlaris.