Come Away.

  "Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away."
              -- Song of Solomon 2:10

Further and further from everything selfish, grovelling, worldly, sinful, he calls me; yea, from the outwardly religious world which knows him not, and has no sympathy with the mystery of the higher life, he calls me. "Come away" has no harsh sound in it to my ear, for what is there to hold me in this wilderness of vanity and sin? O my Lord, would that I could come away, but I am taken among the thorns, and cannot escape from them as I would. I would, if it were possible, have neither eyes, nor ears, nor heart for sin. Thou callest me to thyself by saying "Come away."

I struggle with vacations. I'm in no way diametrically opposed to the practice, or is there any harboring partiality not for my peers who do. However, I do struggle with the lack of purpose and the lack of direction when I'm there. I feel as if my efforts should long towards undertaking a more constructive endeavor. A friend asked me to go on a vacation recently, and mistook my hesitancy for vacations as apprehension towards her.  Vacations I am wary of, Travel, on the other hand, is something I am not wary of. The truth is, I have no apprehensions about travel. I think there is a strong distinction in the way we, or at least I, look at travel.

"Paul had decided to sail on past Ephesus, for he didn’t want to spend any more time in the province of Asia. He was hurrying to get to Jerusalem, if possible, in time for the Festival of Pentecost. But when we landed at Miletus, he sent a message to the elders of the church at Ephesus, asking them to come and meet him.

When they arrived he declared, “You know that from the day I set foot in the province of Asia until now. I have done the Lord’s work humbly and with many tears.I have endured the trials that came to me from the plots of the Jews. I never shrank back from telling you what you needed to hear, either publicly or in your homes. I have had one message for Jews and Greeks alike—the necessity of repenting from sin and turning to God, and of having faith in our Lord Jesus." - Acts 20:16-21

The machinations of  Paul's passage though middle Asia are curious, but only so much as we are meant to understand. Why was the Pentecost Festival so important to return to? Why did it have priority over his work in lower-Asia?

I think with Paul this was a lesson of priorities. For in so much as the festival may have offered tangible visions of the glory of God's work, he realized that the celebration of the gospel could not be allowed repudiate or supplant the message that was being brought forth to this world. Or more aptly, he was emphasizing the duality of both of both message and the joy that accompanies, and how there is a progression stemming from the beginning of the word to when it was made complete.

Paul thought no less of a journey to Jerusalem then a return to Ephesus. And perhaps, without knowing the dynamics of such a time, would lead some to believe that Ephesus would be of smaller importance. But to Paul, it wasn't. He didn't say much upon his stop in Mitelus, but what he did bore hope to a nation.

I think often when our hearts are fixed on the destination, our pursuit after the appearance of joyousness can obscure our peripherals to what the journey can speak into us.  Spurgeon pronounces that,"Come away" has no harsh sound in it to my ear, for what is there to hold me in this wilderness of vanity and sin?" When he calls us to the pursuit of his kingdom, he makes no note of the destination, but only that of the journey. For vacation removes the wonder of the journey, keeps us tied to the vanity of the destination. When did you ever hear of one to say, "I am not so much visiting Disneyworld, but yet embarking on a journey. The destination is no paramount, but the pilgrimage is of the utmost."

Indeed, my aversion to vacation and longing for pilgrimage is far less noble than that of Paul, yet the aspirations of my heart and my service to him convict me to hope for the application of such wisdom in my own walk.

Because I have been made complete in  his love, he hath not cast me to merely a landing place, but to a calling, a completeness of a mission, and to travels to lands not yet seen.

"Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away."

It's gonna be wild. It's gonna be great. It's gonna be full of me.

"And there will be Sorrow no more....."

 "Then he said to them, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me." - Matthew 26:38

Sorrow may come like a cloud of gloom, but our vision of it may not be deep, lest we never be awakened to the hope that awaits.

It's somewhat comforting, although in a contradistinctive sense than that of man. The wholeness of our savior's human nature - his soul - was inhabited deep affliction and vast melancholy. Our sorrows  are rarely borne from the presence of the spirit, rather when we draw at a distance,  situate ourselves in places foreign to the spirit in which we co-habitate. Our further dissociation with the promises we have come to recognize as believers lends us to the cumbersome malaise that God is not present. In "Beginning to Pray", Anthony Bloom tells that "True prayer precludes all conscious and unconscious attempts to manipulate God," in so much as in our endeavor of manipulating the promises to fit our ends, we have lowered ourselves to a plane beneath the fullness of him.

Spurgeon excises this to sat that ours pleas to God need not feel like a shout to an empty sky, but rather an urge to what is already complete.


"If you have a divine promise, you need not plead it with an "if," you may urge it with certainty. The Lord meant to fulfil the promise, or he would not have given it. God does not give his words merely to quiet us, and to keep us hopeful for awhile with the intention of putting us off at last; but when he speaks, it is because he means to do as he has said"

 In Genesis 32, When Jacob was on the side of the brook being pursued by Esau was coming with his army, Jacob sought God's protection, and to him he pleaded, "And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good." The plea was not borne of aloofness or braggadocio, rather of the sorrow that brooded over his coming moments. In so much that man is capable, he was holding God to his word when he said, "Thou saidst."

The sufferings of death are the most in which we will ever be knowledgeable of; such it is and those sufferings are therefore put forth incommunicable anguish. The meaning of the verse might be deciphered as: My sorrows are so abundant that the weight of the burden shall crush me; for with this anxiety of mind, I seem to endure what is greater than death!

Jesus is warning his disciples to abstain from sleep, be vigilant, and be on guard against danger. in doing so, he is sympathetic to their plight,  and encourages unity in the pursuit of divine support, and to forever be ready for advancing dangers.

Just as Christ used the sorrow to fulfill what is to come, so must we be vigilant in our pursuit of divine support.

Open Up

Every blossoming flower warns you that it is time to seek the Lord; be not out of tune with nature, but let your heart bud and bloom with holy desires. Do you tell me that the warm blood of youth leaps in your veins? then, I entreat you, give your vigour to the Lord.  Every blossoming flower warns you that it is time to seek the Lord; be not out of tune with nature, but let your heart bud and bloom with holy desires. Do you tell me that the warm blood of youth leaps in your veins? then, I entreat you, give your vigour to the Lord.

This month of April is said to derive its name from the Latin verb aperio, which signifies to open, because all the buds and blossoms are now opening, and we have arrived at the gates of the flowery year.

I've never thought of the blossoming flower as warning, but perhaps it would be wise to. When the flower is open, God exposes us to the fullness of  nature. In that same regard, when God opens an opportunity in his kingdom, the fullness of his glory can be found there. Almost as God saying, my season has arrived, act now before it withers forever. There's a correlation between our awareness of nature and our awareness of God. The glory of nature allows the wholeness of his kingdom to be arrived by our senses, and rouse our souls and desires back awake.

I just had a birthday a few weeks ago. 29 years of life. I don't feel 29, not even close.  I have felt the exact same age for the last seven years. 

I remember highlights of days in the last decades. But the whole truth of it is I don't feel like I've gained very much. In knowledge and wisdom, perhaps that's understated. I've always been well adept at memorizing and recounting numbers and figures. But actual tangible memories? They always seem less satisfying than they should.

Dis-satisfaction is often how the Lord entreats my heart to again move. 

My default state is always going to be one where I circumlocute from praise. Not because of present humility (to which I address every day, yet the human conditions bilks this), but consequently out of a fear of that praise.  No day has gone by that I have ever felt worthy. And I always endure as a distraction for the next thing.


I speak to you as best I can by paper and ink, and from my inmost soul, as God's servant, I lay before you this warning, "It is time to seek the Lord." Slight not that work, it may be your last call from destruction, the final syllable from the lip of grace.

Out of Touch

"Is it not strange, the darkest hour

That ever dawned on sinful earth,

Should touch the heart with softer power, For comfort, than an angel's mirth?

That to the Cross the mourner's eye should turn, Sooner than where the stars of Bethlehem burn?"

Touch is one of the most profound senses we have the pleasure to experience in our existence. For all our eyes tell us, the world would simply be a collection of colors and pictures. For all our ears would tell us, our world would just become a chorus of noise and random volumes. But our ability to tough allows us to feel a level of depth in the world what we otherwise would not. Our ability to tough rarely ends with our physical grasp, rather the bounds of our reach are existential, producing an energy and conveyance so powerful that all of our other faculties cannot register. Though touch, we can experience coldness even on the hottest days, experience friction in the smoothest of places, and hardness on even the softest of ground.

The trigger of the sound of the conch shell is not the sound of the waves nor the asperous exterior, rather than the seed of longing the sense plants in the soul. While the experience of the conch reminds of the vastness of the oceans, it merely reminds of the desire for the fullness of the ocean, not simply for the object.

And so it is when we come about Calvary.  We make our annual pilgrimage past the consolatory cross that sits upon the hill. The hill on it's own standing would have been much forgotten, but the drops of blood that fell at the feet consecrated the ground beyond what is earthly. Yet for the pain that befell both man and savior on that Friday, no hill in all of man carries that gladness and hope that was borne in that hill.

For without that hill, without that death, our feelings might well end on the surface of the living and the dead. Then heights and depths of his love that extend a reach further than we were build to experience. Out of darkness came triumph. Though his grave came the temple. Through his blood came grace.

Dont Speak.

 "He answered him to never a word."

              -- Matthew 27:14

Is not patient silence the best reply to a gainsaying world? 

Silence as a tool is a difficult thing to master. We have grown accustomed to a natural flow of conversation, a consistent transition from one topic to another.

My prevailing stasis tends to be one of silence.  That's not always intentional. Actually, most of the time it causes me greater discomfort than it does peace. My roomate told me twice this weekend of his both need and desire to throughly "process" information, which for him, is first digesting, and then assembling, those bits of information into something rational, and then applicable.

We tend to place great value on those in our society who are quickly able to to digest and respond to information. Though, seemingly less so on those who digest and consider, analyze and evaluate to a larger scope.

We have almost come to a point where immediate response is conditioned. In the riles of conflict, it is expected that we say something. Say anything! If you remain silent, it clearly trends towards carelessness or indifference. Silence his now regarded as a message of tacit approval. If you do not render a response, either approval or repudiation, you are merely a bystander,  an observer, and possibly complicit, depending on the nature of the presentation.

This is purely societal, an adaption of ideals and mores, and a departure from bibilical truths. In fact, as Spurgeon writes,

"Evidently our Lord, by his silence, furnished a remarkable fulfilment of prophecy. A long defence of himself would have been contrary to Isaiah's prediction (Isaiah 53:7). "He is led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth." By his quiet he conclusively proved himself to be the true Lamb of God."

Isaiah is speaking to the silence of Jesus exhibited as he departed for cavalry. Was there much that Jesus could have imparted to those around him on the way there? Doubtless. However, Jesus silence painted the gravity of what was to come about, and the weight of sin that he must bear. Was this singular silence the index of his perfect self- sacrifice?

"Was this silence a type of the defencelessness of sin? Nothing can be said in palliation or excuse of human guilt; and, therefore, he who bore its whole weight stood speechless before his judge. Calm endurance answers some questions infinitely more conclusively than the loftiest eloquence."

We try to conjure well-laid prose and utterances that we can somehow assuage the pain and reality of the sinfulness that we engage our souls in. Nothing said from one man to another could ever remove this guilt, or provide any permanent healing to it's ends. That only comes with the surrender of all to a king.

However, it is my experience that our tongues become less sharp under the iron of grace, and rarely are teeth gnashing when the word of God is passing though one's lips.

My challenge and prayer is that perhaps, we start to condition ourselves to look at silent expression and response no longer as a indicator of indifference, or apathy, rather, as a careful consideration of the weight of words and moments, and how they relate and connect to grander things.

Presents of God

"Hours for the world! Moments for Christ! The world has the best, and our closet the
parings of our time. We give our strength and freshness to the ways of mammon, and
our fatigue and languor to the ways of God."

He uses two outdated words here. Mammon, which means great wealth, and languor, which means fatigued to the point of collapse.

Jesus wasn't just born to die, he came to live. His preparations and labors over years and years weren't a preparation for his death, they were a preparation for life.

Jesus was the master of not allowing the present supersede eternity, while simultaneously glorifying each hour and minute of the day. Glory means giving the full substance and weight of who God is, consequently who Jesus is. Substance is defined though our wholeness in Christ, who is complete, fulfilling and developed. When we entangle ourselves wholly in the emotions of the moment, we often fail to recognize the scope of his glory as it relates to us. We recognize only the small and mundane, and miss the weightier presence of glory.

This causes two fallouts within ourselves. First, It distracts from us being the conduits of God that we were intended to be. What weight can we carry, what path can we follow without the sight of his horizon? The second thing it does is it segue's praises of God back to the hearts of men. We are granted ownership of things we do create without attributing to him to who credit is due. And we spend countless hours trying to make calculations on life that we do not have the capacity for. The only one who has that kind of time, and perspective, is the king.

"And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time as “foreigners in the land.” (1 Peter 1:17 NLT)"

Spurgeon is trying to put our pursuits on it's proper scope. We aren't foreigners in this land, yet we treat earth as if it is our permanent home. While we speak of proudly and boastfully about our pursuit of God, the soles of our shoes are barely worn.

I don't adjust well to seasonal changes in my life. I tend to dwell too long in the decision phase, and miss opportunities for real growth. My prayers this week are about steering towards eternal things, not towards the temporary.