What do you think

.Jeremiah. said:

Very nicely put Brad.

From my own experience:
I thought I knew what love is.
I thought I knew what goodness is.
I thought I knew what truth is.
I thought like this for 65 years, until I found the Lord.

Then, I eventually realized that i know nothing, and everything I thought was wrong.

Today, I’m still discovering more each day.

I wonder why I couldn’t have found the Lord when I was young, but I thank the Lord that it happened before I left this world.
His time is not my time. His ways are not my ways.

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Brad D. said:

SOS has been such a blessing to me for many years. I love the imagery of Him leading us out to wild incomprehensible places to teach us about His ways, who He is, and His love. But we come up out of that place the richer for it. Beautiful!

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Citizen of the Kingdom said:

Song of Solomon is such a rich look into the love of Christ for His Bride, the Church, w/o spot or wrinkle, in opening our hearts to each other. Loving Him first and others also.
It can be seen as the true meaning behind marriage courtship and vows that the King has taken for His called out one, yes, thanks for that.
The book of S0S seems to start when the dark night has passed, and love is reciprocated. We love Him because He first loved us. The longing always being there as He comes and go.
Hard to explain but I have gained so much from those verse too. From Origen's to Watchman Nee's commentaries there's much to be gained and others also that dig deep into the meanings. I've probably read a dozen of them. Never to grow tired of learning of His love and our desires for Him.

Eta I'm actually now reading Jesse Penn Lewis' Thy Hidden Ones ~ the life of the believer as illustrated in the Song of Solomon ~ commenting on the SoS so delightfully.

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Brad D. said:

The Shulamite's story to me illustrates what happens to Christianity when we try to hold the Lord and worship Him in those places and ways that feel safe to us. She went through a battle of trying to allure Him into the town in which She lived, into her mother's house anywhere but where He was seeking Her to go etc.. all symbolic of places and ways that feel safe to us. Comfortable. Which of course is symbolic of what has happened to today's church. It is a Christianity that has stopped at places that they will go no further. They are trying to make Him come there, yet He still peeks in the window from time to time and beckons them onward. But they look at those wild inhospitable places that speak of Lions dens and and mountains of Leopards and Myrrh, and it is frightening to them, strange, unspeakable, the cost too much the way too daunting. And thus you have thousands of different types of "mother's houses" scattered throughout the world. And we wonder why there is such strife and division and incohesion amongst His body. In a sense it is what happened to the CM forum proposal (Which I am truly at peace with). But it is saying such a thing is too dangerous let us bring it in to the congregations where we feel safe that it may not go too far and we can keep an eye on it. But of course we know there is no forum to post under in the congregations. To where would we go, so we like Christ are outside the Camp, which is probably the best place to be.

Finally I think of the OP of this thread and her story. And it is the same. Here she is a at 65 never truly finding the Lord in the "mother's houses" which confused her so long to know who the Lord was, until one day she found Him outside the camp and there is where She found His love.

Anyway thanks for letting me rant!

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A life of faith without love is like sunlight without warmth - the type of light that occurs in winter, when nothing grows and everything droops and dies.

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Brad D. said:

The Shulamite's story to me illustrates what happens to Christianity when we try to hold the Lord and worship Him in those places and ways that feel safe to us. She went through a battle of trying to allure Him into the town in which She lived, into her mother's house anywhere but where He was seeking Her to go etc.. all symbolic of places and ways that feel safe to us. Comfortable. Which of course is symbolic of what has happened to today's church. It is a Christianity that has stopped at places that they will go no further. They are trying to make Him come there, yet He still peeks in the window from time to time and beckons them onward. But they look at those wild inhospitable places that speak of Lions dens and and mountains of Leopards and Myrrh, and it is frightening to them, strange, unspeakable, the cost too much the way too daunting. And thus you have thousands of different types of "mother's houses" scattered throughout the world. And we wonder why there is such strife and division and incohesion amongst His body. In a sense it is what happened to the CM forum proposal (Which I am truly at peace with). But it is saying such a thing is too dangerous let us bring it in to the congregations where we feel safe that it may not go too far and we can keep an eye on it. But of course we know there is no forum to post under in the congregations. To where would we go, so we like Christ are outside the Camp, which is probably the best place to be.

Finally I think of the OP of this thread and her story. And it is the same. Here she is a at 65 never truly finding the Lord in the "mother's houses" which confused her so long to know who the Lord was, until one day she found Him outside the camp and there is where She found His love.

Anyway thanks for letting me rant!

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