Cart is empty First Love, Part 1: Dark, but Lovely
In April of 2020, I was asked to be a part of a Bible study centering around the Song of Songs. The 24-week study by Mike Bickle, the founder of the International House of Prayer, carried us through this amazing book verse by verse. It was amazing to see with the perspective of Jesus as the Groom and the Church as the Shulamite maiden and later Bride. It was so good, and I wanted to share a couple of take-aways with you for January.
In the first four chapters of this book, we see how Jesus is our inheritance. In the last four books, we see how we are Jesus’ inheritance! Song of Songs essentially follows a believer’s journey, beginning when they accept Jesus as their savior. It ends with that person as a mature believer, with a seal of fire on their hearts that cannot be quenched.
This week, I wanted to focus on a verse from Song of Songs 1:5:
Dark am I, yet lovely, daughters of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains of Solomon.
Now, at first glance, you might be thinking, “Yeah? So what? So her skin is dark.” At least, that’s what I always thought when I read this. But Bickle broke this down and showed me a completely different view. In this passage, the maiden is saying, “I am dark [of heart], yet lovely [to God].” When I heard that, I had to stop and chew on this idea for a while. Bickle calls this the paradox of grace, where we discover how dark our hearts are but realize that even in our weakness, we are lovely to God. Holy Spirit shines his light on us, and we see the hidden things in our hearts that need to be cleaned out. The more light God gives us, the more darkness we see.
But we mustn’t stop there! So many people get caught up, focusing only on how dark they are. If you think of yourself as dirty or sinful, you will continue to live your life as a dirty and sinful person. That’s not how God created you to be. We have to also see and grow in this confidence that we are lovely to God!
Now, this may not be a popular teaching. Who wants to see the darkness inside of themselves? Uhh, not me! This idea reminds me of a story from my marriage. When my husband and I got married, I was 22, and he was 20. Basically, we were children. But we thought we had it all figured out! Don’t worry, it didn’t take long for us to figure out that, no, we DID NOT have it all figured out. Whenever we are doing marriage counseling with a couple before their wedding, my husband always starts out saying, “Marriage shows you how terrible of a person you are.” And, of course, we laugh, but it is so true. Living with someone on that intimate level brings all the “crud” to the surface, like dead fish rising belly-up to the surface of a pond. Eww.
But even with all the “crud,” we have to choose to see ourselves through the eyes of God. It may feel like your love for Him is weak. But that doesn’t mean our love is false. It’s just weak. When love is young and new, it is still genuine! The problem is, we focus on the darkness of our hearts, rather than the blood of Jesus that covers that darkness. He wants us to allow Him to deal with those dark spots of our hearts AND be confident in His love for us! You don’t have to choose between one or the other.
God knew how dark our hearts were even before we accepted his salvation. And he still wanted us! He doesn’t need me to bring anything to the table for him to love me. We have to know that we are lovely to God. We can’t just focus on the fact that we are dark, or else we will live in a constant state of shame in our relationship with God.
We can approach the throne with confidence because we see how lovely we are to God. We have to see ourselves through God’s eyes. They cannot feel the pleasure of walking with God, even in their immaturity. The truth is, God enjoys us even in our weakness and immaturity. Hebrews 4:16
Here are four reasons why we are lovely to God.
1. We receive the gift of righteousness. We have received the gift of Jesus’ righteousness, and this cannot be improved upon. Did you know that God sees Jesus and your righteousness as equal? That’s because you received Jesus’ righteousness when you accepted Him.
2. A willing spirit. This is the sincere desire to obey Him, which is the supernatural work of God in our lives. It makes God smile when He sees that willing spirit inside of us.
3. It’s His nature to see us as lovely. It’s related to God’s personality. It’s like that saying, “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” He sees things so differently than we do. While man looks at the outward performance, God looks at the movements of our hearts.
4. God sees us through our eternal destiny as the Bride of Christ. He doesn’t just see you through the lens of what you said last week or your latest slip-up. He sees the whole of who you are and what we do before Him, in the scheme of all eternity.
Jesus knew Peter would stumble the night he was taken to be crucified. Peter ended up denying Jesus three times, but Jesus said that Peter’s spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak. Peter focused on the part that said his flesh was weak, and he argued, saying that he would never deny God. But of course, we know he did. Jesus was looking at Peter through the eyes of eternity. He could see into Peter’s future and how he would step into his divine call.
I’m sure Peter felt like a failure, like he would never serve in ministry again. And in fact, he went back to fishing the week after Jesus was crucified. But Jesus met him on the shore and restored their relationship and his place in ministry.
I have a similar story of failure in my own life. When I was twenty, I moved back home after finishing a year at Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. I thought I had my life together, and I wanted to step into the next chapter of life– marriage. I had been talking with a guy I’d met in high school while I was at Bethel, and when I came home, we started dating. A few red flags came up, but I ignored them. I was proud and thought I could handle it. But I was very wrong. It didn’t take long for our relationship to take a downward spiral. We had very different ideas of what purity meant, and I was dragged down with him. I felt trapped and alone. I thought that if I told anyone, they would kick me out of the church. I would never accomplish what God had called me to do.
Thankfully, God rescued me, using my parents to help me out of that wildly unhealthy relationship. I remember standing outside my workplace, where my mom and I worked together as receptionists, crying my eyes out. I said, “No good Christian guy will ever want me now.” My mom hugged me and said that the right man would love me, even when he found out all the crap I’d gone through. And she was right. God did such a quick work in my heart. I came to Him with sincere repentance, and he healed my heart. A couple days later, God brought my husband to me. But that’s a story for another time…
When a person fails God, they often get rid of their high-vision, which is to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind and strength. The thought of failing Him again is too painful. It’s not that they don’t love God anymore. They just settle for a complacent existence. They go back to “fishing.”
It would have been so easy for me to fall back into what was safe. But God called me to do more than just slide by. He created me to run after Him with everything inside me! And He purposes the same for you. You may be dark, beloved, but you are lovely to God.
(These thoughts were taken while I was doing a study by Mike Bickle. To go through the full study yourself, visit https://mikebickle.org/series/The-Song-of-Songs-(2007))
