Arise my Love
by Angie Thomas
I was re-reading the lecture notes from Laurie’s teaching from last Tuesday night and was moved again as I read her words:
Today, this week, open yourself to receive God’s immeasurable, unending, unconditional love for you. Make Him your only ambition, your infatuation, your All In All. May He be your EVERYTHING. May he be all you breath, all you live for, all you think, all you want, all you dream, all you desire… May you be able to confidently walk forward in the path of the beatitudes, following the way, humbly acknowledging your need for Him. Lay yourself open before Him to receive His love. You many sense the risk–but go forward by faith; you may fear the hurt–but go forward by faith. You may have a hard time trusting–ask Him in faith to help you. If you just plain don’t want to be vulnerable–ask Him to release you from yourself and to make you willing to be open to Him. Put it all down at the altar, confessing and fixing your eyes on Him. Look to Him and hear His words to you. “Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come away, for behold, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom, they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away.” -Song of Solomon 2:10-13
Whether you feel like it or not, you are His beloved, His love. One of my favorite verses is Isaiah 43:4. God says, “you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you…”. There were many years in my walk with Christ that I had a really difficult time believing this verse. The pain and trials in my life did not make me feel precious, honored, or loved. Instead, I often wondered what I had done wrong or why God was allowing such difficulty.
But…there was also a part of me that wanted desperately to believe it. I had tried to find love the world’s way and it had only left me with more scars and hurts. I wanted to believe that this God of the Bible who I had grown up hearing stories about was real and that He really did love me. Deep in my heart I wanted to believe there was more, more to this life than occasional worldly highs. I wanted to experience this deep abiding love I read about in the Bible.
I cried out to Him and confessed my lack of faith, my hard heart, and my inability to trust Him. The trials did not go away, but in a way that only He could, He gave me the grace to cling to these truths and walk forward, one day at a time, hopeful that someday He would give me the faith to believe them to the core of my being….not in a superficial, church-girl way, but in a unwavering, sweat and glory sort of way.
Cry out to Him for this faith, confess that you don’t have it and He will hear your cry. Quit pretending that you love Him and ask for true, authentic faith. He who has promised us life and salvation is faithful. He will answer. Hebrews 11:6 says that, “he rewards those who seek him.” However, the same verse also says that without faith it is impossible to please Him. IMPOSSIBLE. But faith is a gift and you can cry out to Him to give you a new heart, one that is tired of playing church and desires to truly seek Him. Deuteronomy 4:29 promises, “you will seek the Lord your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.”
Run to Him girls. I can testify to His abiding love and faithfulness. He has truly transformed my heart and I can honestly say that I believe to the core of my being that I am His beloved. He can do the same for you, and it will completely and radically change your life.
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