I Am a Rose of Sharon

This Lent, we are on a journey through Song of Songs of growing into wholehearted love.

While the themes of Lent — fasting, repentance, and mourning — are not often associated with a love song like Song of Songs, I believe that there is a deep invitation from God for us to return to His wholehearted for us and to mourn how we have strayed from His love in this season.

Robert E. Webber writes that Lent “calls us back to the basics, to God’s love for us, and to our response to that love” (Ancient-Future Time, p. 101).

In other words, Lent is a season to return to the love we had at first (Revelation 2:4).

And what better way to turn back to our first love than to find the lyrics of the greatest love song of all time on our lips, giving us language for the longings in our hearts?

12th-century monk Bernard of Clairvaux calls the Song “bread” for our souls, and we would find ourselves amongst the company of great heroes of our faith such as St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross to find language for our love for God within this song.

Old Testament scholar Ellen Davis even tells us that the Song of Songs is one of the most commented on books of the Bible of all time, behind only Genesis and the Psalms.

Today, I want to draw our attention toward the line that the Bride speaks at the beginning of chapter 2:

At first glance, this might seem like a bit of a random metaphor.

Yet, at a closer glance, a significant shift happens at this point in the song. The Bride demonstrates a bit of shyness in chapter 1, much like an early infatuation in which one person is shy and isn’t sure how the other feels about them — the time of blushing and hearts racing — yet in chapter 2, she boldly declares “I am a rose.”

What is this if not a declaration of confidence in love?

The Bride has moved from apparent shyness to somehow knowing that she is without a doubt loved by the Bridegroom.

When we consider the verses we prayed last week — “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” — in effect, “Come and love me! Come and show me more of your love!” — we find in chapter 2 the beginnings of the fulfillment of the answer to this request. The Bride is growing in her knowledge of how beloved she is!

The Bride has moved from shyness to a sense of a deep knowing that she is loved, to the point where she declares a confident identity statement that in effect says “I AM LOVED!”

How confident are you that God loves you?

And how often does your confidence in God’s love for you impact the words you say in prayer?

What fills your mouth primarily — words of self-confidence in what God says about you, or words of subtle self-depreciation or shame?

And, if your prayer life contains requests and intercession, does it come from a place of deep confidence in love, or a place of subtly doubting that God actually sees and cares?

As we reflect on Lent and on this journey of growing towards wholehearted love, an important part of the journey is getting the fact that God loves us out of our heads and into our hearts, and from our hearts into our daily conversation with the Lord.

And, as Jesus says, out of the abundance of our hearts our mouths speak, do we overflow with confident assurance that “I am loved by God?”

When was the last time you simply said, “God, thank you for your love for me?”

I would love to invite us today to fresh a consecrated and confident speech, that we would only use our mouths to communicate the truth of what God says about us (and others).

As we move towards our commemoration of the crucifixion and resurrection, we get to remember the reason we can be confident in God’s love for us. Paul writes:

So, here we find ourselves on the second Wednesday of Lent. Last week, we prayed “Come and show me you love me!” and today, I want to invite us to pray an identity declaration:

“God, I believe that you love me. This is who I am: loved by God!”

If it helps, you can pray straight out of chapter 2: I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.

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: how confident are you in God’s love for you? Do you tend more towards insecurity and shame or more towards independence and a lack of need for God’s love?

• Then, simply invite God to help you align your speech with what He says about you. I’d invite us to pray in the spirit of Song of Songs 2:1 — with boldness and confidence that God really does love us, and that this is who we are. Perhaps make this a centering prayer over the next day and week: “I am loved by God.” Or, “Thank You that You love me.”

• Is there any way that God might be inviting you to focus your spiritual practices over the next five weeks — 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!