Roses

'I am a Rose of Sharon, a Lily of the Valleys.'

'Like a Lilly among thorns is my Darling among the maidens.'

'Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my lover among the young men. I delight to sit in his shade and his fruit is sweet to my taste.' Song of Songs 2:1-3

Jesus is our refuge. And not just our place to hide from the storm and make us feel good. But if you're married, you know your spouse is literally an oasis from the weight of the week. Jesus is the same. He is our beautiful rose and apple tree among the week, among the people, among the songs and work and school and everything and everyone else. No one can love us as passionately as he can. He desires us so badly and wants us to sit in his shade all day enjoying him. God never said it would be easy living in this world. Most of his closes friends and companions that were his while he was on earth either died horribly or were exiled. Following our beautiful sweet Jesus leads us to the cross. But we are also led to a marriage with our Beloved Jesus forever and ever. How wonderful to have a Beloved who will and has died for us. Poured out everything he has in order to save us and keep us and woo us to be his own.

He is our God and our Everything. Forever and ever. God be near to you this week and this Monday. It's always hard starting up another week, but when we have a wonderful Jesus who is like a pool of cool water on a hot day or a lovely bed of roses to lie on when tired, he wants us in every moment of this week to be intimate with him and lie in his embrace.

Everything Fades Off In His Embrace

I told my wife yesterday, after a hard week, "I really, really hope people who are not in love with God get psychoanaylsis. I'm 100% sure on that." Laughing she said, "How come?" "Because I am so messed up and when I had really close love time with God this morning he took it all away . But what about people who don't have God? They need analysis!" "Why don't they just become Christians too?" "Well, I mean, these are the people who would never become a Christian." "OH! Ok, alright, i can see that."

Whenever I just am going under the waters of my day, or week, there is one way to always, always get rid of it all. Worship Jesus and get into his loving embrace. Fast. He takes away our entire load for us; he unhooks our yolk and gives us the yolk of a lover relationship with him as our identity. When we trade in his kisses for anything else, life blossoms. Love blossoms and comes alive in him. Because he is love. He is God.

One tool we need to stay in his love is his hope. Hoping that one day it will be us and Jesus on a beach at sunset kissing. "Kissing you is more delicious than drinking the finest wine. How wonderful and tasty!" Song of Songs 7:9. To be entirely his and to live every moment of every day in his gaze and embrace. One with him at every moment. To God, we are the desire of his heart. The one he wants to marry, to love, to live with forever, to embrace and be one with. When we let this become our entire identity, we change and this world just burns off in his embrace. We need to be lost in joy being with our Lover, our Lord Jesus Christ. We need the thought of being near to him to make our heart race and to give us trembles.

Jesus knocks at our heart every day to come in to be intimate with us and be worshipped by us.

Listen! I am standing and knocking at your door. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and we will eat together (Revelation 3:20)

'Let the north wind blow, the south wind too! Let them spread the aroma of my garden, so the one I love may enter and taste its delicious fruits.' 'My bride, my very own, I come to my garden and enjoy its spices. I eat my honeycomb and honey; I drink my wine and milk. Eat and drink until you are drunk with love.' Song of Songs 4:16-5:1 (CEV)

When we let him in, we get our heart's desires. We get to indulge and take great delight in a romance where we worship our Heavenly Lover.

Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you your heart's desires. Psalm 37:4

And this is exactly what God is longing for with us. He wants to rejoice over us as his lover. He wants us, bad.

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so your God will rejoice over you. Isaiah 62:5 (NIV)

In His Eyes and Mind

In the Son of God's eyes, we are perfect. We are his heart's desire; we are the one he dreams about being with. From the beginning of time, we were destined to be his (Ephesians 1:5). He greatly desires us beyond anything. And forever, he wants to be one with us. Us completely worshipping him. He wants that right now. Intimately. Personally. In us. He wants us to be his. He wants our bodies to be his temple. He wants us to get flutters in our heart when we feel him inside of us. He wants to be the one we cannot get off of our mind, regardless of what we do to look the other way. And every single day, he watches us. Loves us. Is so excited for when his Father says he can come to be with us. He is our Heavenly Lover. He is our God.

Today, worship him. Alone. And give him all of yourself. Submit to him, surrender to him. The joy of surrender to Jesus is incredible. Alone, jump up and down in joy and celebrate him. Tell him how you really feel about him. Let him tell you how he really feels about you. Fall deeper in love with him. Or if you haven't yet, fall in love with him. Meet your Invisible Beloved, who desires you and wants to be inside you loving you, never separated from you, always with you, and fall in love with him. He loves you more than anything. He wants you to fall for him. To desire him. He will do anything for you. He already has :) And through the loving and worship and enjoyment of Jesus, give that love to others. Help those in need. Love your neighbor, your friend, those in trouble, those who need help. And those who say they don't. Let them see Jesus' love in you and maybe they will fall for him also.

God is love. 1 John 4:8

In Love

Jesus and us; this love story between God and us was written by John of the Cross which I believe was supposed to be a Spanish free-form version of Song of Songs (the full version can be found here: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/john_cross/canticle.html) I hope this helps you be near to our Beloved God today. Like kissing him in the middle of a street in Turin (like these two above ^)

Spiritual Canticle of the Soul and the Bridegroom, John of the Cross

Stanzas 24-26, 28-32

Our bed is of flowers

By dens of lions encompassed,

Hung with purple,

Made in peace,

And crowned with a thousand shields of gold.

In your footsteps

The young ones run Your way;

At the touch of the fire

And by the spiced wine,

the divine balsam flows.

In the inner cellar

Of my Beloved have I drunk; and when I went forth

Over all the plain

I knew nothing,

And lost the flock I followed before.

My soul is occupied,

And all my substance in His service;

Now I guard no flock,

Nor have I any other employment;

My sole occupation is love.

If, then, on the common land

I am no longer seen or found,

You will say that I am lost;

That, being enamored,

I lost myself; and yet was found.

Of emeralds, and of flowers

In the early morning gathered,

We will make the garlands,

Flowering in Your love,

And bound together with one hair of my head.

By that one hair

You have observed fluttering on my neck,

And on my neck regarded,

You were captivated;

And wounded by one of my eyes.

When You regarded me,

Your eyes imprinted in me Your grace:

For this You loved me again,

And thereby my eyes merited

To adore what in You they saw.

Destiny

One of the hardest things to do is to love Jesus in a romance in this world. We are meant to be with him; it's destiny. But at the same time, most things in the world and designed to make us crash and not pursue him. At the end of the day, it's what we do to pursue him and fall in love with him. He's already in love with us and has been since the beginning of time. We have a love story with God that is one written in the stars; we were made to be his beloved. So often we have a hard time living from that identity. Usually, we live out of an identity of busyness or what we do or where we work, but our true identity is found in him. Our Lover.

Everything he has done is to get us. He died on the cross to get us. He suffered to get us. All so that we would think, say, and write to him as we worship him and enjoy his embrace and kisses, "My Lover is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies." Song of Songs 2:16. We are living in the middle of a heavenly romance story. Where God is our (not-so) secret Lover who lives with us as here in his Holy Spirit and promises one day to return to us, sweep us off our feet, and marry us forever.

God has made us wonderfully in his image and as his beloved we should flourish in him. I read a long time ago about how a girl in love changes. Well there was this girl who was never put on makeup, never did her hair, wore plain clothes, she mostly kept to herself and didn't make any waves, you get the picture. Everyone who knew her thought she was just the "plain Jane." But then one day something changed. She came to work and to class differently. She had fallen in love. And after that, things mattered in a way that they didn't before. She wore makeup, she did her hair, she smiled nonstop, she made herself heard. She had fallen in love and been told that she was special. But, after that, she believed it.

It's just a story and I always thought it was sweet. (Not that I am endorsing the beauty industry's tactics or anything like that) The point is that when we fall in love, we should look like we are in love. We should have the fruits of the Spirit pouring out of us and we should really want to tell others about how in love we are. We have God, who is madly in love with us. Promising to whisk us off our feet and take us on the most romantic, passionate, sweet and darling honeymoon and happily ever after every and love us forever as our Beloved. We should be a city on a hill because of that. Others should see our light and our joy and want it also with God.

We've got everything we ever wanted with our God. Psalm 37:4.

Insomnia

Alright, so I can't sleep. And I'm sitting here listening to the most indie music ever. This past weekend, I discovered the magic that is Pandora. And I created indie channels that are of the names "Death Cab Radio" and "Wilco Radio" and "Spoon Radio." I discovered the indieness that is the band Phoenix. And realized I had heard their song '1901' before (on a Cadillac commercial....that's ironic). This weekend we discovered again how much awesome our family is. I have the greatest in-laws. Ever. And we hung out with them. I ate 4 grilled chicken thingies (slices? not too sure on that one) at a cookout at my uncle and aunt-in-laws. And now the week has begun. (PS that guy above ^ is hilarious; I DO believe that you can laugh yourself to sleep)

Well, a good idea when not able to sleep, something funny!

I really thought this was funny, just because he is on TV so often at my parents house. I would NOT have thought this.

Funny times.

Life is good with God. Always :)

August, The First Possible Month of Fall

I started writing a journal this weekend which I got for my birthday last week. I've come to realize that the biggest problem that I have is myself. I realized that I'm just fine as God's beloved during the weekend, when I have lots of time to worship and celebrate him and just bask in his love. But when pressure and busyness come, I'm nowhere to be found by God. My pastor confirmed this, when he said almost verbatim what I had thought today in church. I read this verse in Jeremiah 17:10:

I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give each man according to his ways, according to the result of his deeds. (NASB)

I have these moments where I just wake up, like a man who comes out of deep sleep and it feels like coming up out of the water, and I understand that it's what I do that is important. Fine, maybe we all have wonderful beliefs on paper. But there are times when I'm just scared because I know I am not living in my relationship with Jesus as I should be. I ignore him. I forget him. I brush him off to be with myself. And that's sad. I can't miss out on a moment with God. It's too precious, too important, too wonderful. I told God today I want to spend the Autumn with him together this year. Not that we don't anyways, but I want it to be our time when our love blossoms again. I wrote down Song of Songs 3:1-2 and 5:2-6 in my journal in church and realized it was exactly what I did and felt when my Beloved comes near to me:

All night long on my bed I looked for the one my heart loves; I looked for him but did not find him. I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my heart loves. So I looked for him but did not find him...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 the 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. (NIV)

I find myself in that exact same scene with Jesus' Spirit, taking place inside myself almost daily. I have to end it. I am so deeply in love with him. I can't let our relationship be dull, without passionate because part of me just plain lackadaisical and filled with lethargy. We had prayer at church at the end; I did something then I've been wanting to do for most of the past week. I put my arms up in the air and tiptoed upward celebrating God and mouthing to him how much I love him, how much I adore him, how happy he makes me.

God, I love you so much Jesus Christ. I am yours forever. I love you my Lover. I can't wait to have the best Autumn ever with you this year.