Dreaming of Him

This weekend was a wonderful weekend. I have the most wonderful wife in the entire world! She didn't do a Father's Day for me, she did a Father's Weekend for me. It was a whole weekend of celebrating me! I felt so special; she made me feel incredible (which she does every day, by the way! Thank you very much!) What didn't we do? She let me sleep in both days, put up signs in our house saying, "Happy Father's Day," gave me some new sound-isolating Skullcandy headphones (they are awesome), a beautiful picture of her and our daughter for my office, two wonderful cards from both her and our daughter that I put on my desk, and we had a pizza night and watched movies. And she got me some Father's Day Starbucks (both days!). It was soooo coool!! It felt like my birthday, or Christmas morning. Then my parents bought me a brand new North Face backpack which I badly needed for my books for being a math teacher and being a college ctusdent, plus they gave me a couple new books (I got Hemmingway's A Farewell to Arms-I'm alrady pretty far into it, it's so good-can't believe I didn't get around to reading it sooner; and a throw back book Star Trek: Insurrection, which is back to my days as a boy who played Star Trek with the neighborhood boys and built models of the USS Enterprise), and a couple new office clothes. And my father-in-law came over for breakfast and brought us breakfast sandwiches, cherry cream cheese pastries, and dark roast coffee. It was just awesome! I love Father's Weekend! I have the best wifey in the whole wide world!!!

Today is Monday though. God keeps reminding me, "Remember me." My daily encouraging emails are on remembrance, the Scripture i read today is on remembrance. Everything is pointing towards remembering. After such an incredible weekend of joy, and then crashing into the weekday, it's hard to remember Jesus. Remember the passion with him. Remember the joy. The ecstasy at his touch. How difficult it is to remain in intimacy with God during this transition. Sometimes remembering is one of the most difficult things for us to accomplish in seasons of transition. Remember! Remember the joy he brought you when you worshiped him, surrendered to him, enjoyed him, gave yourself to him. And how he gave himself to you. Remember the joy of the touch of Jesus' hand.

Remember a conversation like this between you and Jesus?

Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20 (NIV)

Eat and drink until you are drunk with love. Song of Songs 5:1 (CEV)

But my lover wouldn't take no for an answer,
and the longer he knocked, the more excited I became. Song of Songs 5:4 (The Message)

I love what John of the Cross wrote in his commentary on Song of the Soul and the Bridegroom (Stanza XXIV):

this bed of the soul is the bosom and love of the Son of God, full of flowers to the soul, which now united to God and reposing in Him, as His bride, shares the bosom and love of the Beloved...This union of love with God is therefore most appropriately called a bed of flowers, and is so called by the bride in the Canticle, saying to the Beloved, “Our bed is of flowers.”

We live in between two worlds. One perfect with Jesus and our family from God and then this world, which is a second-class derivative mixed with life and banality. Our souls and hearts long and desire for a romance with Jesus, yet we are like a car stuck in the mud of time sometimes. Unable to free ourselves into Jesus' heart and passion for us. Jeanne Guyon said it well in Song of Songs of Solomon:

When the Bride, or rather the lover (for she is not yet a bride), has found her Bridegroom, she is so transported with joy, that she is eager to be instantly united to Him. But the union of perpetual enjoyment is not yet arrived. He is mine, she says, I cannot doubt that He gives Himself to me this moment, since I feel it, but He is to me, as it were, abundle of myrrh. He is not yet a Bridegroom whom I may embrace in the nuptial bed, but a bundle of crosses, pains and mortifications; a bloody husband ( Ex. iv. 25), and crucified lover, who desires to test my faithfulness, by making me partaker of a good share of his sufferings.

When in need of remembering God's embrace, make time with him a priority. Break away from the world for a few minutes, and remember. Do something that will draw you back to the intimacy and ecstasy of being with God. And remember what it felt like when he knocked on your heart because he wanted to come into your soul and feel your embrace. This is our God, our Lover, who desires us and never wants to be separated from us.