This is My Beloved and This is My Friend

Today, I want to reflect on one of my favorite passages of Scripture — Song of Songs 5.

After a long night searching for her Beloved and the taunting of her friends, the Bride makes one of the clearest declarations of who her Bridegroom is.

She praises his features for quite a few stanzas, and ends with this lovesick declaration:

Friends, this is what the dark nights of our lives are meant to produce: a clearer declaration of who God is to us.

The cumulative effect of the nights of our lives is that we are set free from anything that we have loved or put in place of God — even His gifts and His presence — and we come out with a purer sense of who God is to us.

There comes a time in our life when everything we have thought we have known about God will not be enough for us. The words of our parents telling us who God is won’t do anymore, the words that our faith tradition has told us about who God is won’t work to make it through the pain, and old, simplistic ways of relating to God in prayer simply won’t be deep enough — we have to find God for ourselves.

The disciples come to this point in their journey in Matthew 16 when Jesus asks them who others say he is.

They respond with all of the rumors and perspectives about who Jesus is — perhaps he is John the Baptist, perhaps he is Elijah, perhaps he is one of the prophets.

Then, Jesus asks them a simple question:

Have you reached a point in your journey with God where the words of other people about who God is simply won’t do anymore?

This is what the wilderness is meant to do in our lives — it’s meant to put us in a place where we have to encounter God for ourselves.

We have to name who God is through the deep, intimate encounter that is only possible in the wilderness.

The wilderness is where Moses learns God’s name.

The wilderness is where Elijah hears the still small voice.

And the wilderness is the place from which Jesus emerges to hear the voice of the Father speaking to Him.

The absence of voices other than God’s is also one of the features of St John of the Cross’s dark night — he writes that there are no people to guide us in the night.

In a dark night, mentors fall short, friends don’t understand, and sometimes we even find that our community has turned its back on us! He writes:

I want to note that I’m not talking about being anti-community or anti-leadership in our lives, I’m just talking about God’s clever design of dark nights which are meant to break us from any attachment we have to voices in our lives other than God’s.

If you’re desiring community or desiring the voice of a mentor, leader, or pastor to guide you but simply can’t find it, I want to humbly suggest that maybe God is doing a deep work in you, inviting you to depend on His voice and His voice alone.

I promise he’ll return the voice of others to you, but first, you have to be set free of your dependency on them.

What I love about the Bride’s declaration is the relational nearness with which she names her Groom — as Beloved and Friend.  

On the other side of the dark night is a deeper, lovesick intimacy with Jesus.

What attachment is God seeking to break in this season?

Who is God on the other side of that attachment?

So, I’d love to invite us to pray today:

• Begin by taking some deep breaths in and out. Perhaps as you breathe in pray the words from Song of Songs 1:4: “Draw me,” and as you breathe out pray: “after You.”

• Once you feel settled, begin to name with honesty: is there any attachment that God might be trying to break or set you free from? Who is God on the other side of that attachment? (For instance, if you find yourself in a tight financial season, perhaps God is trying to break a dependence on finances so that you learn to trust Him as a Provider.)

• Then, simply talk to the Lord. Tell Him who He is to you!

• Is there any way that God might be inviting you to focus your spiritual practices over the remaining two weeks of Lent — either by fasting something to challenge God to fill a space in your life with his love or by adding a new rhythm of prayer?

Amen!

P.S. If you made this this far, I’d love to share that Morgan and I are embarking on an exciting new ministry venture this year and we are looking for a team of friends and supporters to come alongside us in some specific ways. A huge part of what’s in our heart is to launch 24-7 Prayer ATL into the wild! If you’d be interested in supporting us in some specific and practical ways, please hit “reply” and I’d love to share about what some of our needs are!