As I was in the prayer room I was reading in Song of Songs. If you don’t know much about Song of Songs the whole book is God’s love story to us. It is His poem book to us where He wants to show us how intimate He is and how He wants to be our lover and wants to marry us. After my roommate was prophesied over about the Shulammite woman, I wanted to know more about this Shulammite woman. I wanted to become this Shulammite woman during my Pursuit journey. All I knew was that she comes out of the desert and she is leaning on her beloved and she had grown so close to him during the wilderness that she is still leaning on him even as she’s walking out of it. I didn’t have a clue where this woman was talked about in the book so I started at the beginning and just began to read it through. I didn’t really learn much more about the Shulimmite woman in Song of Songs, but God opened me to some other things that just hit me like a pin piercing my heart. I’m just going to go in order of the scriptures and what God showed me about them.
Song of Songs 1:6, “Do not stare at me because I am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother’s sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards; my own vineyard I have neglected”. I heard a sermon from the awakening services about this verse and while I couldn’t remember everything that was mentioned about it I thought that it was talking about how we had neglected our vineyards, and we had neglected ourselves and our gifts we give to God, our spiritual gifts. I was reminded of this and felt convicted that I too had neglected my vineyard. I had neglected to take care of it and tend to its weeds. That means I had neglected my gifts I give to God because I felt so far from Him, I couldn’t connect with Him the way I wanted to. I had totally abandoned my vineyard in search for something better to fill my fairytale garden that I wanted to make up. Then it says verse 2:15, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom”. I felt like God was saying I had let foxes in my vineyard, sly foxes that were only out to steal, kill, and destroy. I felt like I had let the foxes in and they ate the buds that were about to bloom. They ate my spiritual gifts, I allowed them to eat the buds that were about to bloom. The little buds that I did have that were still developing and they ate them. My heart aches for this; God is still working on me about this and teaching me to forgive.
I felt totally gut wrenched and over come with intense emotion, when I read Song of Songs 5:2-8, “I slept but my heart was awake. Listen! My lover is knocking; ‘Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.’ I have taken off my robe- must I put it on again? I have washed my feet- must I soil them again? My lover thrust his hand through the latch-opening; my heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my lover, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the lock. I opened for my lover, but my lover had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him, but did not find him. I called him, but he did not answer. The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. They beat me, they bruised me; they took away my cloak, those watchmen on the walls! O daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you- if you find my lover, what will you tell him? Tell him I am faint with love.” I felt like for most of these verses God was speaking to me telling me this is how he feels about me. How He has wanted me to open the door to Him and invite Him inside to reside for forever and give me hope and security. How He eagerly wants me to see how He pursues me like how He looks for his lost sheep, but when it came to the verse, “My lover thrust his hand through the latch- opening; my heart began to pound for him. I arose to open for my lover, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the lock. I opened for my lover, but my lover had left; he was gone. My heart sank at his departure.” For a moment I had a visual that He was answering the door and He was looking outside for me. Like He had come to answer the door to let me in, but I was already gone. I had already left. As if I was tired of waiting for Him, or maybe just scared, or not ready for Him to answer the door and so I decided to leave. It was all too familiar to me, I felt like I had been there so many times, like He was telling me this is the story of our life and this is our constant game of peek-a-boo or let me run to you when I need you, but when I can’t find you or don’t want to wait for you let me run away, back to my make believe vineyard where I was deceptively “safe”. Just the look of Jesus eyes in the vision made me want to cry, like He had such hope on His face such excitement to open His door and see who loves Him, who came to see Him, but as He opens the door He finds no one there. He looks out the door in search for me and with such unyielding, unrelenting, accepting, and loving passion for me He searches through the streets asking people if they have seen His Beloved, His Long Lost Lover, His Friend, but they hadn’t seen anyone in sight. Oh it just broke my heart. It made me want to cry and apologize and meet Him even more to spend time with Him and make up for all that long lost time. As I think about this a Matt Gilman and Misty Edwards song comes to mind, the words are “All I want is just to know your heart and would you keep me here until we’re one”. This is my heart’s desire, for me to know Him more by spending time with Him. God, give me an unrelenting passion for you, a passion more jealous than the grave. And Please, God, let me never neglect my vineyard for anyone other than you or leave the doorways that you have planted in front of me that help me grow to be the person you have birthed me to be.
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