The love that holds you from eternity to eternity

Inspired by last year's "Be Found in the Kiss" Colour Conference (read here, how God gave me his heavenly kisses weeks before the conference) for this year's lent I decided to read Song of Songs. Even for someone who did Literature for her undergraduate degree Song of Songs poetic style is hard for me to read. I wanted to read it with the help of the different interpretations and insights from different writers.

The title, Song of Songs, is a Hebrew way of saying the greatest song -- just as king of kings means the greatest king (Song of Songs 1:1) [Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel]

Here I tried to summarize some of my personal key takeaways at the end, and start my reflection with what God has recently taught me about love. 

Song of Songs and love

There is Jesus and there is gospel throughout Song of Songs, because the love described there reflects our love and intimacy with God.

Song of Songs is erotic love poetry describing the passion shared between a husband and a wife, along with the sexual intimacy that rightly accompanies it. This type of literature can seem out of character for the Bible and might make you blush when you read it. But it is so valuable because it also reveals much about our intimacy with God. [Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel]

On love, last year I received one of the most precious gifts, that God taught me something new, for the first time, that forgiveness is a definition of what love is -- read my story on that, here.

And in my Song of Songs reading now, with only several devotional readings on Song of Songs available, God taught me yet another definition of what love is: a travail of intercession.

Who is this one?
She arises out of her desert, clinging to her beloved.
When I awakened you under the apple tree,
as you were feasting upon me,
I awakened your innermost being with the travail of birth
as you longed for more of me. [Song of Songs 8:5]

"This is rare, but this makes your journey with God even more real."

On a Sunday in July last year where we relayed Brian Houston preaching, even though it wasn't specifically doctrinal, but I was encouraged by what he shared on pre-marital sex. This isn't a topic you would typically hear from the pulpit on a typical Sunday. I shared with my small-group last year that looking back, since when I was younger until today God has been protecting me, when it comes to virginity.

All the men who pursued me were all from church and they had the same view with me on preserving sex for marriage. Even the non-believer men who pursued me, still valued me for having that life principle. But these men, for none of them God did what He is doing to me now: to intercede for him before I even met him, before I even knew him, and then to forgive him, and to continue interceding for him.

In November 2020 when God supernaturally asked me to pray for a man I never met I didn't immediately think that as a love story. Because it scared me actually -- I actually thought he was someone else's husband, and I never received such 'task' for a stranger. But this is the story that helped my immediate obedience:

• I lived in Berlin in 2015. A church sister then told me a story of her friend who one day, out of the blue, God asked her to pray for an ex-boyfriend. That ex-boyfriend had moved on with life, married and had children. But she obeyed. And until now she still didn't have the answer why God did it then. 

So I thought, as I was reminded of this story, maybe it's not too impossible, for God to ask you to pray for a man you never met before, even if he's someone else's husband, maybe he needs someone to pray for him, God sees and knows everything anyway. Even Google didn't give me any clue about it.

But as months went by, as He began to reveal more to me, I could see His relentless love and pursuit for this man all over this rare story. And now I still ponder the same what I pondered last year early March as I was talking to a brother then, that even the miracles He provided me for in this journey, they were and are all part of this assignment of His relentless love. 

See for yourself

Right up front, the greatest Song challenges us to meditate on the links between God's presence and sexual desire and intimacy (1 Corinthians 6:13)  [Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel]

The Shulamite 

2Let him  smother me with kisses—his Spirit-kiss divine. 

So kind are your caresses, 

I drink them in like the sweetest wine! 

3Your presence releases a fragrance so pleasing—

over and over poured out.

For your lovely name is “Flowing Oil.” 

No wonder the brides-to-be adore you. 

4Draw me into your heart.

We will run away together into the king’s cloud-filled chamber.

I was reminded on the presence of Holy Spirit in me; the Holy Spirit provides us constant intimacy with God. But to see it for myself, Holy Spirit helps me on this, to see that God's presence is more satisfying than all physical intimacy. 

Jesus is the Groom who loves me, His bride, "so intimately that he laid down his life". [Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel]

His love is relentless

The woman in Song of Songs is called a Shulammite, "a feminine version of the name Solomon. Both names, Solomon and Shulam, come from the word Shalom, meaning peace or wholeness. When the two parts become whole, Shalom is found". [Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel]

It can be difficult to hear God lavish compliments on us and rejoice over us with singing when there are so many other voices calling out for our attention (Zephaniah 3:17). Like the bride, we can easily and abruptly be snapped away from moments with God by the voices of culture, entertainment, or our past life.

Those voices tell us to leave the imaginary garden of God’s love and throw ourselves back upon the previous ways we found validation and love. When God says we are beautiful, those voices drown him out with comparison. When God says he desires us, those voices tell us that type of love doesn’t exist.

But we need to listen to the truer voice of our husband, Jesus. As the woman (Shulam) was given the name of a king (Solomon), we have been given an even greater king-–Jesus (Matthew 12:42).

He is the king of the whole earth and yet he calls us his bride (Revelation 19:7). When he calls us radiant, holy, blameless, without stain, wrinkle, or blemish, we can know that his voice is more true (Ephesians 5:27).

[Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel] 

I learned something new here, that the bride's response is a reverse of those spoken by God to Eve as a curse:

Now I know that I am for my beloved 

and all his desires are fulfilled in me. [Song of Songs 7:10]

Because in Genesis 3:16, God told Eve, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." But now, the man desires the woman and they are equal (Song of Songs 6:3). [Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel] 

Travail

I also learned that besides God's very depth of heart and love has intensity, it is also filled with purpose. 

That explains that we are called -- as we "mature and unselfish love drives us" -- "to share His heart with others". [The Divine Romance, Broadstreet Publishing]

As we grow in him and become spiritually, emotionally, and physically whole, we want to see others experience equal wholeness. We're motivated by an intense longing to see more of Christ birthed in the earth. We labor in intercession and in sharing the gospel in order to see others captured by these same holy affections and to see them begin their own glorious Shulamite journey. [The Divine Romance, Broadstreet Publishing]

travail

noun [ usually plural ]

UK /ˈtræv.eɪl/ 

US /treˈveɪl/

an unpleasant experience or situation, especially one that involves a lot of hard work or effort:

We can stake our trust on Him, whose love holds us in eternity

Our past wounds may cause us to miss God's blessings. When we're not ready we could spend every energy in us, to push the blessing away. In my journey if seeing this grieves me, then I know it has grieved God first in eternity. 

In the same breath, if separation hurts me, I would know it has God too in eternity. Song of Songs captures this separation when the groom disappeared, her husband is nowhere to be found (Song of Songs 3:1). In our lives God may seem far at times -- if Jesus loves us more than anyone (even our own parents and spouse), He must be closer to us than anyone. 

But we still wait for Jesus' return -- that's why, like Song of Songs, "the whole Bible ends with a sense of longing and unfulfilled desire (Revelation 22:17). Like the bride, may we wait for Jesus, full of love, expectancy, and praise." [Jesus in All of Song of Songs, Spoken Gospel] 

At the receiving end of far from nice and friendly gestures, I may never know if God is doing this journey as part of Him writing my love story. One of my fears now actually is, if I would be able to love any other man, after this intercession ends, until God reveals what's next. But what I know, this is about His love, that just like everything in this universe this is for His glory. I got a glimpse, a tiny bit of what it means, of His unconditional love. Because if I could learn to love a man so much through praying for him before I even met him, through praying for him so intensely, even all the more God's love for him.

He has first loved him, just as He has first loved me, in eternity.

I tell you this: You will be sad and you will cry. But the people who belong to this world will be happy. Yes, you will be sad. But soon after that, you will become happy instead. 

....
 
It is like that for you. You are sad now. But I will see you again, and then you will be happy. You will be really happy. Nobody will be able to stop you being happy.  (John 16, EASY)

  

Love has a name, so does Forgiveness: When God put a name to my Forgiveness.

Have you ever been in a situation, where, being able to name a particular unusual and challenging situation in your life, actually helps you to deal with it? That, how it doesn't change the unusual situation/person, but it does help you to cope, after you are able to put a name on it?

I have.

Perhaps, "When we suffer, we seek answers." (TD Jakes) helps to give insights, why we (or I) deliberately put in efforts, to put a name on a difficult situation we can't wrap our head around.

You just don't know. 

For a man in his 50s, and a CEO minus-1 (a direct report to the CEO), my soft-spoken American ex-boss doesn't seem to fit into the typical stereotypes of men of his age and his type of role. When I lived in Singapore I was practically surrounded by Americans, and I could use one hand, how many of them are soft-spoken. But in 2019, even in any given year in modern corporate world, my ex-boss just doesn't make decisions as fast as he should, as he procrastinates and seems to be even almost paralyzed in the face of urgency, being required to make one. Common that people would sit in some hours long meeting with him could end up leaving the meeting without clear directions on what actions to take for impending business issues. This side of him also creates other implications in the team, making the department known as one of the most toxic ones to work in.

I wish I could see my ex-boss in a different role, instead as a boss. But his unusual behavior (for someone in that role) does make him a bad boss. 

I could use one hand to count, how many such unusual situations or people I have ever encountered in my life. And these situations or people would usually drive me to turn to Psychology for insights.

This particular situation with my ex-boss took me to the dichotomy of alpha, beta male. That beta males are actually controlling, just like the alphas. Amazing how psychologists spend decades to study and research on human behavior.

I may take it as another opportunity to learn about life, about people, I thought I've seen and experienced enough, learning yet another outlier, another unusual situation, another unusual personality or behavior, but I also remembered being... humbled. 

After being this old, after living in four different countries and meeting people from all walks of life, I still need to learn about myself (my own wounds came from my mother), about all these "symptoms" that we display of, actually, a lot of pain, of "I'm afraid." or of "I'm hurt." or "I'm bored." or "I'm insignificant."

As odd as the situations or person could be, in this fallen world you just don't know; you just don't know what sh*t happened in people's past, what broke them, that make them display unusual behaviors now, just like this fallen world has marred our own life.

What had happened to you?

The past year I would look at the person I care so much about, and wondered, What happened to you? 

In January 2021 in my devotional readings God spoke to me about wounds, this was one of the things He first revealed to me, even though my intercession started in mid November 2020.

I already sensed the triggers, but it was a 50/50 chance. Until, when God revealed something to me in September of last year, that question has become even more specific since, What happened to you? What did she do to you?

God is sovereign, even in the worst life situations that you simply can't wrap your head around.

Such situations would only enlarge your perspectives and views of situations and people. Such situations could make you rise above people of your generation, because the more unique the bad experience is, the more rare, so less people would have come across it. And that's a superpower. 

One of the things I enjoy hearing people's life stories is, also learning from the unusual situations they encountered. 

I find this habit, really humbling, and liberating, to make me being able to say, "We just don't know.", or "It's a mystery.".

But psychology as a knowledge does help us to give us insights, so we can put a name on what we are going through, to be able to see it from a larger point of view, and take necessary actions -- such as our obedience to forgive.

Forgiveness is an act of love

This is me sharing the most precious gift I received last year, that God showed me, how love is defined by forgiveness I was able to extend, again and again.

I wasn't looking for forgiveness, I wasn't looking to forgive at all. So when I received John 13 in June, I was more of... yeah, sure. Until a couple of weeks later, God gave me John 13 again in a separate occasion -- I repented, as I sensed He wanted to make sure, that I forgive.

Only after the second time John 13 was given to me, I made a deliberate effort to read more on forgiveness and here are the insights. 

1. "Love switch"

A writer calls it a "love switch" -- this switch doesn't turn off when the pain is inflicted, when the offense happened. "Instead, internally you wrestle with the emotions of love and the conflicting emotion of hate. Your love for the offender fuels the question, why?" (Betrayed, Bettye Nicole, www.bettyenicole.org)

I didn't know that I have this switch.

2. CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy)

I think, forgiveness does not mean, the offense never happened. But, "Forgiveness excuses the offender. ... The fact that we forgive someone of their sin towards us, does not make the sin okay." (Psychology of Forgiveness, Kanayo Dike-Oduah, www.doctorkanayo.com)

Just like how He sees us, and not our sins.

CBT is a technique we can practice when memories of the offence bring back feelings of anger, bitterness. In light of biblical truth, the CBT technique is synonymous with 2 Corinthians 10:5; taking thoughts captive.

"Christian CBT acknowledges the activating event (the offence), the behavioral response (the anger, emotional despair) and the consequences (prolonged bitterness and negative thoughts). Yet as believers we dispute these negative thoughts far beyond how conventional psychology says we should. We don't simply dispute by asking whether it is logical, practical or evidence-driven to think this way. Christian CBT compels us to take captive (known as 'thought-catching' in CBT) these negative thoughts and memories that do not align with the truth of God's word and bring them to the obedience of Christ."

It's probably similar to, each time my mentally ill mother verbally abused me, I would tell myself, This is not her, this is her condition doing that to her.

But I was also reminded, not to be hard on myself -- that my brain is functioning as normal. It's the command to forgive that is abnormal to the flesh. 

3.  Make new memories

We can make conscious efforts to decide, how to respond to our memories (of the offense), and how to be intentional about forming new memories. 

"Creating new memories will do two things: it will weaken the existing neural connections in your brain from the negative experience that you had and form new neural connections for the positive experiences that you will intentionally create." (Psychology of Forgiveness, Kanayo Dike-Oduah, www.doctorkanayo.com).

I'm personally encouraged to be reminded, that there were incidents in the OT we can see how sins angered God too. But He has compassion on us, again and again (Micah 7:18-19).

Who is a God like You, who forgives wickedness
And passes over the rebellious acts of the remnant of His possession?
He does not retain His anger forever,
Because He [constantly] delights in mercy and lovingkindness. 

He shall again have compassion on us;
He will subdue and tread underfoot our wickedness [destroying sin’s power].
Yes, You will cast all our sins

Into the depths of the sea. 

Forgiveness is an act of love

I don't know if God allowing me to have a mentally ill mother has anything to do with this recent experience of forgiving a son of His, to actually prepare me for this rare experience of forgiveness. Even to my own mother, God never deliberately asked me to forgive, this intensely. 

But the fact that He supernaturally asked me to pray for this son of His, before I even met him, before I even knew him, takes me back to the notion that, God sees everything, we don't -- we don't know what sh*t happened in people's lives, but He does. 

Months later when He asked me to forgive, and made sure I got it by giving me John 13 twice in June, tells me that He knows way, way beyond what I (a finite, created being) know. And in September when He showed me through a night vision what He meant with the wounds, who caused the wounds, as a confirmation to what He revealed in January, I stand in awe of Him.

God is sovereign. Always. 

 

Love conquers: revisited.

Last week the family I have been attending announced the topic of what they would focus on for 2016: Love Wins. And I was once more made amazed as I was just two weeks earlier, standing in awe of His continued revelation on His love. 

Two weeks before that I was reading from Acts 8 on Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch when God gave me a new revelation on His heart: the inclusiveness of His love, that at the center of His heart is always about saving souls. And by His grace, this reading also healed me from my wound.  

Love that conquers wounded lives
Has it ever happened to you, that you put a certain issue of your life into an invisible closet and you continued your life pretending that you don't have that issue with you anymore. At least I knew I did it to my wound. 
Several times at my last church in Singapore people would come up to me to say, "God loves you." And I never really believed that. That knowledge of God's love for me stopped at my head, and never really reached my heart. If you knew my background, an avid activist in student ministry in my undergraduate years (core committee, worship leader, small-group leader), at the same time a Sunday School teacher at my church, and at least 7 years after that I was in parachurch environment -- a few close friends I shared my wound with, couldn't believe what they heard, that I had difficulty to believe in His love for me. 

For years what I believed to be true, that God's love for me was less than what He graciously gave to others, was healed at the moment He revealed this new meaning on His heart from an 'old' passage that I've read many times before. If He cares so much about the salvation of the Ethiopian eunuch and mine, practically gentiles with more than two thousands years apart, all the more He would have my best interest at heart. And to trust His heart is enough, regardless of any storm I am and will be in.

Love that conquers doubts
I could pretty much imagine what Philip may have had in mind (in much lesser degree of a personal experience, just a few months ago) -- being summoned in a sudden, with little information, Philip sets out with immediate obedience. Divinely Philip intervened the Ethiopian eunuch's journey, As he was going back home, he was sitting in his wagon reading about the early preacher Isaiah (v.28). 

I wonder if Philip would have showed the slightest hint of amusement from the moment he ran up to the eunuch's chariot (v.30), to when he started preaching the good news (v.35) and to baptizing the eunuch (v.38). Because this was one of the very first beginnings when God started to continuously reveal to the disciples that His kingdom is also meant for non-Jews. 

In his obedience Philip exhibits God's perfect love that conquers doubts. 

The unconquerable love
This battle of mine I am currently fighting may not be the last as more others may come, but indeed He has won all of them for me, because this perfect love that conquers my wound and doubts comes from a God who wins.

A Beginner's Guide: Prophecy - If it's a gift, do I question the Giver?

Are you new to a church that claims it's charismatic?  Are you familiar with the spiritual gift of Gift of Prophecy? 

I've been very much curious about this new gifting of being prophetic. 

I've asked a few trusted people and recently began to read some materials about this gift of prophecy. The fact that we talked about this in our home group just a few weeks back had made this curiosity re-emerged.

I still have my own questions, left unanswered.  But one thing I agree with is that it needs to be tested.  
One friend told me how encouraged and amazed she is when she heard my story about my gift.  I, too, think that it is a wonderful experience of being asked to pray for someone in a way I have never experienced before. 

If you read my previous posting, to me, the gift came uninvited. And I'm not sure if the verse that God gave me as an answer for is the part where I got the "prophetic moments" tested. 

As curious (or frustrated) as I have been, I want to grow (yes, I do think the spiritual experiences have been helpful in my personal relationship with God) in this gift. And as encouraged before, I could practice it. 

This is practically new to me, and began rather more intensely since early this year, I'm afraid I may not handle this very well. Sighs. 
Looking at what Piper suggests about this gift, as below, I think I lack of boldness (again, an issue which has been addressed by my home group leader to me personally). Because faith is not cowardly.

Click here for the source.

Using Our Gifts in Proportion to Our Faith, Part 1
The Gift of Prophecy
John Piper, October 2004

Let’s see if we can have these common aims together even if some call it the gift of prophecy and others don’t. Let’s go back to Romans 12:6 and take up the command to use the gift of prophecy “in proportion to our faith.”

1. The Exaltation of Christ

Using the gift in proportion to our faith will mean that we use it to exalt Christ. That’s what faith does. Practically that means that as I bow my head before entering this pulpit I ask for the gift of prophecy. That is, I say (and you can say this about your small group as you are driving there), “Lord, bring to my mind thoughts and words, beyond my preparation, which will have the greatest effect for the glory of Christ. Bring to my mind applications and insights and words, besides those I have prepared, that will penetrate through hard hearts and convict, and others that will encourage and console and guide. Yes, I believe you have given me edifying insight already in my preparation. I am only now asking that to the gift of teaching you would add a gift of prophecy.” I pray that way and you can too.

2. Humility and Boldness

Using the gift in proportion to our faith means that we will use it both humbly and boldly. That is, we will not speak the prophetic word with any claim to divine authority, but with a humble claim to divine insight which we offer to be tested. But faith is not cowardly. It’s humility is not silent. It speaks. It speaks the tough or tender word. It does not say, “The Lord told me to tell you . . .”, but “I sense (or I think) that the Lord wants us (or you) to . . .” This leaves room for the testing the Bible calls for.

3. Love as the Measure of What We Say

Finally, using the gift in proportion to our faith means that we will make love the measure of what we say, because “faith works through love” (Galatians 5:6). Once a woman prophesied over me that my pregnant wife would give me a daughter not a fourth son, and that my wife would die in childbirth. That was not a helpful prophecy. It was pointless. And, as you know, it proved false. Love did not govern the use of that gift. That is not the way saving faith uses gifts.