Freedom of God

DEVOTION

SONG OF SONGS

FREEDOM OF GOD

Song 2:14-17

14 My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. 15 Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom. 16 My lover is mine and I am his; he browses among the lilies. 17 Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, turn, my lover, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the rugged hills.  

NIV

We are supposed to believe some of this is spoken by the Shulamite, with a couple of words stuck in there from her brothers, and the lover responding. That is if we believe this is all about the love affair between a man and a woman. It is just odd to think God inspired such a humanistic romance novel. What we are reminded of is that God hid Moses in the cleft of the rock because Moses wanted God to show himself to him. God spoke in a voice to Moses, his voice was sweet to him, but sounded as thunder and lightning to the children of Israel at the base of the mountain. This might relate to us in that same sense. To us the voice of God, and we could say the scripture is his voice to us, is sweet, we savor it, but to those who are at the base of the mountain, or living in the base condition of sin, only hear judgment and wrath in his voice, thunder and lightning. Then we have this idea of the foxes that ruin the vineyard and we are wanting the king to catch them, for the grapes are in full bloom and the foxes are consuming all the grapes, thus no wine. But those foxes could also be the demons of hell, trying their best to destroy the vineyard of God, his church, us. There is no question that we are God's and he is ours, when we read those words, my lover is mine and I am his. The Lord does browse among the lilies, and again the Lord dwells with his people. He moves about, dwelling in his church. Until that day, the day of the Lord when the shadows break, when darkness is no more, when it is day continually, we beseech the Lord to be free in our lives, to be like that gazelle or like a young stag running free, in the rugged parts of our life. Those areas we still struggle with, that temptation we still allow to grab us, ensnare us. Lord, be free to romp in that rugged hill.