“My beloved spoke and said to me,
“Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me.
See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.”
Song of Songs 2:10-11 NIV
Winter is supposed to be just a season but sometimes it feels like an eternity. We expect the seasons to change with a familiar regularity but sometimes we get stuck. We hear our beloved bridegroom’s invitation to leave winter behind us but winter remains and spring seems no-where in sight. This can leave us feeling perplexed as we think – if it’s over, then why am I still here? What am I doing wrong? But we have to look more closely at this passage of scripture to understand just how Jesus invites us to leave winter behind. However he does it in a way that we might not expect; Jesus simply calls us into a deeper place of intimacy within our relationship.
“Show me your face, let me hear your voice;
for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely”
Song of Songs 2:14 NIV
Intimacy is being known and accepted for who you truly are, as you are. Jesus simply asks us to come and be fully seen & known by him; to allow him to see our true selves with nothing hidden. But although this invitation seems straightforward, our reply often complicates things. Our initial response can be tainted by our shame and fears, like the bride in the Song of Songs, we turn him away and say no.
“Until the day breaks and the shadows flee,
turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle
or like a young stag on the rugged hills.”
Song of Songs 2:17 NIV
Sometimes the thing Jesus asks of us isn’t what we expect and it’s the thing we feel least capable of doing, so we disregard our desperation to leave winter behind, turn away from him and stay where we are. His words of affirmation that should encourage us, scare us. We struggle to accept the things he says about us. It’s easier to stay in our shame and self-hatred than to take a risk and believe that we truly are lovely to him, that he loves and accepts all that we are and all that we are not. We disbelieve that we can fully show him our true selves and that he will still desire us. Will he still call me lovely if he sees who I really am?
His invitation is to come out of hiding, to let go of all our shame, unworthiness and fears and to be fully known just as we are. But it feels safer to stay hidden than to fully let him into our hearts. We feel incapable of going on this journey of vulnerability, we know that it will cost us. Intimacy has a cost. True relationship cannot be controlled or faked or manipulated. It requires openness, honesty and trust. All facades have to be laid down. Whatever performance we have put on to protect ourselves has to stop. We count the cost and the cost seems too great. So we avoid his gaze and often without fully intending it, we allow our fears to rule us and remain in winter instead of moving forward with our beloved into spring.
However there is a greater cost incurred when we choose to turn away and stay hidden, as our relationship with Christ will never mature. Why is intimacy with Jesus such a fundamental area for us as believers to grow in? Because in that place of deeper intimacy we learn to trust. Trust is such a vital factor of our relationship with our bridegroom because only when we trust him are we able to walk by faith, which is an essential component required for us to become over-comers! When we walk only by sight, our fears and doubts hold us back and keep us bound. Only by supernatural faith can we look beyond our current circumstances, our winter, and recognise the spring before us and then by faith begin to grasp that reality and advance into it, overcoming every obstacle in our path. We have to believe in what Jesus sees and says about us and our future, over and above what we can detect with our own eyes. In other words we trust that the winter is over, just because he says so, even if we can’t distinguish that yet.
Without trust and faith we will stay right where we are. Boldly stepping out in faith, relying on his words alone, requires a secure foundation of trust and that trust grows through relationship, by believing in his adoration and affection for us. If we want to leave our winter behind us, the first step is to choose to believe in his love and desire toward us, even in our weakness. When we learn to trust him with all that we are, our whole hearts, we realise he is the one that knows us most and that he makes the declaration that we are lovely from that place of knowing us better than we know ourselves. But it’s up to us to believe him.
If we want to step out in faith and become over-comers, we have to enter into intimacy first and foremost, only then we can go by faith to where Jesus wants to take us. Jesus’ invitation in the Song of Songs is actually two-fold – he’s inviting us into deeper relationship and drawing us into his heart because he wants to take us to conquer the mountains – the problem areas in our life that are keeping us stuck. He wants to lead us out of our winter, of where we are caught right now, and bring us to a place of complete victory.
“Arise, my dearest. Hurry, my darling.
Come away with me!
I have come as you have asked
to draw you to my heart and lead you out.”
Song of Songs 2:10 TPT
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Rebecca Clare Carter 