WHERE IS HE THIS MORNING?

WHERE IS HE THIS MORNING?

It is often true that the God I love seems to have taken the day off. He is far away from me or, if He is near, has chosen to sit silently by while I pray. He sometimes gives no indication that He is with me.

For the careless there would be no need or reason to search for Him but for the lover there can be no calm of soul until He is found and communion restored. Such is the occasion of the maiden in Solomon’s Song.

Song 3:2

2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.

The Commentary of Keil & Delitzsch suggests that this is a dream since such a night search would have been immodest for a maiden. She is not searching with feet and eyes but with her whole heart. There is such a longing for him that her sleep is disturbed.

The maiden is a type of the church because she is the “bride” and longs to be joined to her husband, Christ. Oh, how dry is the church where Christ is not evidently felt. Yet Christ allows this apparent absence to test the church’s love. Do we continue in formal and unsatisfying ritual or do we fall upon our faces and beg for His presence and power? The answer reveals the true heart of that church. If we seek Him we will find Him when we search for Him with all our heart.

Song 3:4

4 It was but a little [I hadn’t searched long or far] that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go…

Ps 63:1

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; AMEN