Song of Songs 7:10-12 “Now I know that I am for my beloved and all his desires are fulfilled in me. Come away, my lover. Come with me to the faraway fields. We will run away together to the forgotten places and show them redeeming love. Let us arise and run to the vineyards of your people and see if the budding vines of love are now in full bloom. We will discover if their passion is awakened. There, I will display my love for you.” Today's episode talks about this verse and everything I like about it. I love that God's desires are fulfilled in me. I also talk about redeeming love and bringing it to the forgotten places. I also talk about what that phase of "redeeming love" reminds us. I end with talking about how we sometimes let fear get in the way of answering God's call. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Redeeming Love
Song of Songs 7:10-12 “Now I know that I am for my beloved and all his desires are fulfilled in me. Come away, my lover. Come with me to the faraway fields. We will run away together to the forgotten places and show them redeeming love. Let us arise and run to the vineyards of your people and see if the budding vines of love are now in full bloom. We will discover if their passion is awakened. There, I will display my love for you.”
I chose these verses for a few reasons. The first one was that I really like how it says all his desires are fulfilled in me. I have heard oftentimes that God will fulfill the desires of your heart. This is something I genuinely believe. This verse isn’t saying that, though. It is saying that God’s desires are fulfilled in me. Thinking that my life fulfills God’s desires is a nice thought. Thinking that I could contribute to the happiness of God in some small way feels pretty good. I believe I am doing that if His desires are fulfilled in me.
Another reason I chose these verses is because of the phrase “redeeming love.” It says in the verses above, “We will run away together to the forgotten places and show them redeeming love.” I love this idea. I love the idea of going to the forgotten places and the forgotten people and showing them the redeeming love of Christ. That phrase, redeeming love, is powerful. It shows us that God’s love is not passive. It is not like our love. It is an active love. It is a love that changes people. It is a love that is powerful.
I like that phrase because it reinforces that we don’t have to do anything to redeem ourselves. It reminds us that we don’t have to say the right thing to be redeemed. It reminds us that we don't have to do the right thing to be redeemed. It is not a secret formula we need to figure out. We don’t have to be a specific person to be redeemed. We don’t have to fix our lives and change everything about ourselves to be redeemed. God’s love is what redeems us. God loves us so much that He sent His only son to die on the cross for us. Jesus was the one who earned our redemption for us. The work has already been done. All we need to do is accept this love and allow it to come into our hearts and change us. I love that!
Another reason I chose these verses is because I love the idea of reaching the people in the forgotten places. There are so many people who have been forgotten. Forgotten by their families, forgotten by their friends, even forgotten by the church. There are so many people who feel so alone. It’s crazy because billions of people are in this world, yet so many feel alone. There are more ways than ever for people to keep in touch. There is Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok, which are just the ways I know about. There are so many ways to keep in touch, yet teens feel more alone than ever. My biggest desire is to be able to help every single person in this world discover God’s love. I wish they all knew about this redeeming love. I wish I could go with Jesus to all the forgotten places and share His redeeming love with everyone.
The last part of these verses says, “Let us arise and run to the vineyards of your people and see if the budding vines of love are now in full bloom. We will discover if their passion is awakened. There, I will display my love for you.” What came to my mind when I read this was that this is precisely how you feel when you fall in love with Jesus. I must admit that I struggle with using the word lover when referring to Jesus or God. It is a pretty intimate term, and I didn’t really understand how it applied. However, reading this passion translation of this book of the Bible, I understand it a bit better.
I understand how we can fall entirely in love with Jesus and want to share that love with others. I feel like I am the woman speaking in these verses. I want to run around to all the people in the world and see if their passion is awakened. I want to help them to awaken their passion for Him. I want them to love Him as much as I do and to know he loves them. Actually, that last part is probably more important than the first part. Yes, I want them to love Jesus, and yet I think it may be more important that they know they are loved by him first.
I understand better now how much the Lord is pursuing us. I understand how much our yes means to Him. I can also understand a bit more why some people say no to Him. Sometimes, His love can be overwhelming, and we aren’t used to that type of love in this world. We can think we don’t deserve that type of love. We can let fear get in the way of accepting His love. On Father Mike’s Catechism in a Year podcast, he talked about a young woman he was teaching RCIA to several years ago. She went through the whole program but decided not to do it when it came time to become a member of the Catholic Church. She said she could not, in good faith, commit to going to mass every Sunday. That felt too overwhelming for her, and she did not want to become a member of the Church if she could not fulfill all the requirements, for lack of a better term. He talked with her, but she couldn’t do it. He prayed for her over the years, and recently, she wrote him a letter explaining that after all these years, she realized that she was letting fear get in her way of the call she knew God was placing on her heart. She was afraid of not being able to measure up. She was afraid of letting the Lord down.
Many of us feel this way. We feel God is calling us to do something, yet we don’t answer that call because we feel we won’t be able to do whatever He calls us to do. If God is calling us, He will equip us. He will give us the grace we need to follow through. God doesn’t want our perfection. He wants our yes. God doesn’t need us to have everything all figured out. He needs us to trust that He will lead the way and be there to guide us and provide us with all we need to do what He called us to do. If you have been reluctant to say yes, I feel the Holy Spirit prompting me to encourage you to take that leap of faith and say yes. You will be surprised how God blesses you when you say yes to your call. You will also be surprised how much better you feel. There is a joy I can’t explain. You have to feel it to understand.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we want to answer your call. Please give us the grace to say yes. Lord, we want to have an intimate relationship with you. Please show us how. We want to feel like this Shulamite woman feels about her Bridegroom King. Please show us how. Lord, we love you and want to bring your love to others. We want to bring your redeeming love to the forgotten places. Please help us. You are unique, Lord. You are King of Kings and Lord of Lords. You are the almighty one, a waymaker, and a promise keeper. Thank you, Lord, for being you. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name. Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. Next week, I will bring you details on my new group coaching program that will help you discover how to walk more boldly with Jesus in your journey. I am so excited to share this journey with you! I look forward to meeting you here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!