In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, breathed life into Adam, placed him in a garden, and said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). As simple as it sounds, I believe that this small statement announces the desire that will give meaning to the whole of human history that follows. Though marked by the folly of human rebellion, the painful weakness of fallen flesh, the agony of divine lovesickness and jealousy, the redemptive story of God tumbles through all barriers to fulfill the churning desire of the Father; it is the story of the search for a helper suitable for the greater Adam, Jesus (Romans 5:14).

The foundation of this epic saga is the history of the Jewish people, chronicled in what we as Gentile Christians call the “Old Testament.” Luke tells us that Jesus “explained to [the disciples on the road to Emmaus] all things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Luke 24:27). The story of redemption did not just begin in a manger in Bethlehem two thousand years ago, but is built upon millennia of the faithfulness of the Lord suffering long with a people. I will look at four sections of the ancient texts as glimpses into the lover-God and the desires fueling His holy plan to reconcile to Himself all things (Colossians 1:20). First, in the Law (or Torah) God’s desire for intimacy with humanity leads Him to join Himself to a people. Second, the historical books show the Lord looking for a heart that is fully His in the midst of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Next, the wisdom literature displays the superior, prevailing beauty of the God of Israel. Finally, the prophets unveil the bleeding heart of a jealous Husband who pleads for and demands the affections of His beloved.

The Law begins with the book of Genesis, and Genesis begins with the beautiful creation story followed soon by man’s tragic fall. The generations after that fateful choice are marked by increased moral decay in the hearts and lives of men as the wages of sin play out in the earth. In the midst of the dreary landscape of humanity’s rebellion, though, there remain a few whose hearts are faithful to God: Seth, Enoch, Noah. Then, from His holy habitation the Lord sees a man named Abram and speaks to Him, commanding him to go to a land He will reveal and delivering a promise: “…in you all of the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3).While until now there were faint glimmers of understanding, in the Lord’s reach towards Abram is a shocking and beautiful revelation that He will not relent in His pursuit of humanity. The man’s name is changed to Abraham, and through the miraculous birth of his son Isaac, the promise of blessing continues on to the next generation, narrowing to a specific land (Canaan) and a specific people (the descendants of Isaac). Isaac’s son, Jacob (later named Israel by God), is himself encountered by the Lord and receives the promise that God will make Him a great nation.

Four hundred years later the descendants of Jacob’s twelve sons have indeed become a great nation, but they groan under the burden of slavery in Egypt. God encounters Moses and tells him His intentions in delivering the Israelites from their bondage: “Then I will take you for My people, and I will be your God…” (Exodus 6:7). Partnering with His servant, Moses, the Lord God of Israel works miracles in Egypt, sets his people free from their Egyptian captivity and leads them into the wilderness on their way to the promise land of Canaan. On Mount Sinai He made a covenant with the people: “If you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples…and you shall be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:5-6). Israel agreed and in the wilderness God betrothed Himself to a people, knitting His name and His glory forever to them. In the priesthood YHWH established the point of contact between God and man, mediated by the ever present sacrifices that speak of the blood to come that would do what the blood of bulls and goats could not.

Yet the people are soon unfaithful to their covenanted One and as such spend forty years in the wilderness before entering the promise land where they again fall into adultery with the gods of the nations. The historical books tells of how hundreds of years pass with men stumbling and doing what seemed right in their own eyes (Judges 21:25) until the people cry out for a king. The Lord answers them first with Saul, a ruler who seems qualified according to the estimation of man but turns wicked under the pressure of leadership. But God had seen a shepherd boy in Bethlehem, David, who had a heart after His own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). The Lord’s favor rests upon David and he becomes king of Israel and ushers the nation into its days of glory. In spite of all His earthly successes, David is honored in the courts of heaven because of his heart; he is one whose heart belongs to God. Because of this, the Lord promises to establish the throne of David forever (2 Samuel 7:12-16).

David’s son Solomon carries the Kingdom of Israel to its zenith, but as he reaches the end of his life Solomon’s heart moves away from God and starts a downward spiral in Israel’s history. The nation is divided in two: the northern kingdom of Israel and Judah to the south. As kings rise and fall in both kingdoms, each man’s worth is measured by a simple criterion: did he do right or evil in the sight of the Lord? Sadly, the overwhelming testimony is the latter; of the forty kings that came to power in both kingdoms, only eight, all from Judah, were considered good kings by God. Though history clearly showed them that “the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His” (2 Chronicles 16:9), few kings turned from their wicked ways to put their trust in God.

Now that we have followed the history of Jewish people, we can explore the two other genres which speak to the very concrete realities above. The wisdom literature offers a testimony to Israel across generations of the superior, prevailing beauty of Yaweh. In the story of Job, readers learn that though suffering may come even to the righteous, God is still sovereign over all the earth and that His wisdom is far superior to that of man. The Psalms extol the excellence of the Lord in all His acts and character. The Song of Solomon carries through the theme of a God who is a lover committed to his people in the story of Solomon and his Shulamite bride.

Finally, the prophets continue to express the heart of God as a husband for His people, Israel. At first glance, the God of the prophets may seem harsh and angry, but when you place the word of the Lord in the context of millennia of history of a God covenanted to a people who are repeatedly unfaithful and turn their own way, it begins to make more sense. Add to this understanding the revelation of the emotions of God as a jealous lover who desires the whole affections of His beloved and the writings of the prophets become a tragic love song to the nation of Israel.

This truth cannot be illustrated more clearly than in the book of Hosea. God commands the prophet to marry a harlot and continue to love her, care for her, and buy her back even as she gives herself time and time again to adultery. Hosea’s life then becomes a living and breathing testimony to the people of Israel that their unfaithfulness with the things of this world pierces the heart of God, but that He will never give them up. This motif is echoed in the prophets Isaiah (1:21, 54), Jeremiah (2:2, 3:20), Ezekiel (16) and others. Even those prophets where it is not implicitly mentioned, we must read the anger of God against Israel and the nations as the jealousy of a husband, and His judgments as alarms meant to wake up the people and turn them back to Him.

Throughout the Old Testament, the redemptive plan of God is clear for those with eyes to see. His faithfulness to Israel from generation to generation provides the backdrop before which Jesus appears as the hero of the story who will in the end have a bride made ready, a helper suitable for him.

In light of these attributes which tie my mind in knots, God’s humility seems, to understate, counterintuitive. But as Tozer says, God cannot suspend one of His attributes to perform another; He simply is all that He is, all of the time without changing (Tozer 15). He is the I AM (Exodus 3:14). That the God who is infinite-ness, who knows all, who is rich beyond imagination, et cetera into eternity, is at the same time humble to His very core is truly stunning. The most vivid portrayal of this humility must be in the incarnation, Emmanuel, God with us (Isaiah 7:13, Matthew 1:23), Jesus the Messiah. To gaze into the mystery this Man in whom it pleased the Father for the fullness of God to dwell (Colossians 1:19) is to awaken lovesick awe and gratitude in our hearts.

We should start at the beginning:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being…And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us… (John 1:1-3, 14)

The pre-incarnate Christ, second person of the Trinity, was at the Father’s side in the beginning, the very master craftsman of creation (Proverbs 8:30-31). “For by Him all things were created…all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:16-17). The God of creation, the One who formed Adam from the dust and breathed life into his nostrils on the sixth day (Genesis 2), emptied Himself and took on the form of His creation in a human body. “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8). Oh, the mystery, that becoming a lowly man and pouring out His life unto death was not giving up infinite glory or power or any other attribute of His person but rather fully expressing all that He is, wrapped in His humility. In Jesus on the Earth, God being wise looks like Yeshua, son of Mary and Joseph, “[continuing] to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom” (Luke 2:40). The omnipotence of the Most High God looks like the King of the Jews hanging naked on a Roman cross.

Jesus said, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father…The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works” (John 14:9,10). The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is “the radiance of His [the Father’s] glory and the exact representation of His nature” (Hebrews 1:3). This means that in His life and His words Jesus tells us what God is really like. He shows us when He changes water to wine at Cana (John 2) that the Holy One who breathed the stars into existence stoops so low as to care about little things that concern the human heart, such as keeping the party alive at a wedding. One of Jesus’ most extravagant displays of humility was in washing the disciples’ feet. When He finishes, He makes the astonishing statement so foreign to human logic: “You call me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for so I am. If then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:13-14). In this He clearly shows that there is no contradiction in His supremacy as Lord and His bowing down as the humblest of servants.

Jesus says of Himself, “I am gentle and humble in heart” and then admonishes us to learn from Him (Matthew 11:29). In staring at the humility of God, I find my heart overwhelmed with the beauty of His person and exhilarated by the power of His affection. This God-man is humble not in some abstract context void of emotion but rather as the overflow of a torrent of desire for a people: without a second thought, He will do whatever it takes to win our hearts. This is where His zeal for holiness and His faithfulness and His justice and mercy and love all pour out into a humble human frame through which He expresses love at its highest pinnacle. Again and again my heart is pierced with the cry of Oh, the mystery! What beauty! Truly He is fairer than the sons of men (Psalm 45:2); yes, His name is like oil poured forth (Song of Solomon 1:3), this One who is so far beyond my comprehension yet bows so low for His beloved.  Isaiah says it well:

For thus says the high and exalted One, who lives forever, whose name is Holy, “I will dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.”

(Isaiah 57:15)

To set our hearts to “learn from Him” in that He is humility is worthy of a lifelong pursuit.

We Will Run Together

I will arise and I will go with You   (SOS 3:2)

Skipping over mountains and hills   (SOS 2:8)

Leaving all my fears behind

For I hear Your voice warm and sweet

Echoing off all those mountains saying

Come, arise my love   (SOS 2:10)

And we will run together   (SOS 1:4)

I want to be with You where You are   (John 17:24)

I want to be with You where You are

So I will make my way   (SOS 4:6)

Up the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense

I will arise and I will go with You

Skipping over mountains and hills

Leaving all my fears behind

So we can run together

And we will run together

This week as I spent some sweet moments of my sabbath alone in silence before the Lord, the lyrics to a Misty Edwards song were heavy on my heart. (This is not a really a rare occurrence; probably every day of my life I think to myself, “Oh, like the Misty song…” at least twice. That said, I truly believe that the Lord is going to raise up many musicians and singers to be End Time messengers, and Misty and others are forerunners of those who will be annointed by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the word of the Lord through song, so I think it’s a sign of the times that her songs speak to me so much.) The only part of the song I could remember kept rolling over and over in my head: “Will you marry me? Will you take my name? Will you marry me?” she sings from the perspective of the bridegroom God calling to His beloved. I felt the Holy Spirit moving on my heart and moved downstairs to my keyboard.  Ephesians 5:18-19 tells us to “be filled with the Spirit…singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord,” so that’s what I did. Using my handy iRiver, I was able to record part of this spontaneous worship, complete with wrong notes and the sound of flipping Bible pages…I posted it for you to listen to hopefully encourage your hearts in the hope we have in the fact that Jesus is faithful and true in all that He does, from following through on the glorious promise to return for His bride at the end of the age, to coming in the middle of the night with a tender kiss on the heart of a small, weak girl in Kansas City. Click on the title to listen, and read below for lyrics.

Revelation 19

Oh, how I love You, Jesus, faithful and true

You are coming back to marry me

On that day they’ll sing blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9)

On that day,  the day of the gladness of Your heart, I will crown You with my love (Song of Solomon 3:11)

On that day I will say my Maker is my husband (Isaiah 54:5)

As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so my God will rejoice over me (Isaiah 62:5)

You are coming back to marry me

Oh, how I love You, Jesus, faithful and true

In Hebrews 12, the writer exhorts believers to “lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross…” (v. 1-2). When I think of setting my sights on the faithful Witness, the Firstborn from the dead, the Ruler of the kings of the earth, Him who loves me and washed me from my sin by His own blood (Revelation 1:5), I am overcome with the necessity of working out my salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). This is the One awesome in majesty, who formed the heavens and the earth and upholds all things by the word of His power, but also the One who chose love every time, who emptied Himself, who left His Father’s throne to come and woo my heart, who gave it all to have me. Oh, the beauty of this man!

Though fixing my eyes on Him surely comes in many forms, lately I’ve been thinking about the dynamics of looking into the eyes of a Man. There is something intimate about eye contact. There is vulnerability. What is it like to meet the gaze of the One with eyes like flames of fire (Revelation 1:14)? It makes me think of that day in a little while when I will stand face to face before Him, of how I will be overwhelmed by the beauty of His person as I finally see Him just as He is (1 John 3:2). And then suddenly the only thing that seems important is being beautiful for Him when He looks upon me. I am willing to do whatever it takes to not be ashamed when my eyes meet His, to have lived a life in desperate pursuit of love and no lesser thing. I long to present to Him the gift of a heart consumed with holy love. No matter what pains and disappointments I encounter in my life, a heart like that cannot be stolen from me as long as I daily choose to fight for it. Each decision is costly, but when I stand before Him on that day I want to give Him the most costly gift I can give because He is worthy. I am here on this earth to buy gold refined in the fire (Revelation 3:18).

So, as I eagerly await that day, I center my heart on this reality. Each painful choice to go low, to forgive, to bless my enemies, to pour myself out, to lean, to open up before Him, evokes the cry, “The thousand shekels are for you, O Solomon! Here I am, the joy set before You; come and have Your inheritance in me.”

* The basic interpretation is that the maiden of the story works to cultivate the vineyard of her own heart (“My very own vineyard is at my disposal” SOS 8:12a) and then chooses to give the profits of her labors to her lover (Solomon) as the culmination of her progression throughout the song into greater levels of intimacy and maturity in love.

Lilies I have tended

Here I am,
leaning, and You catch me,
I am a vapor
carried by the breath of Your mouth,
riding the eddies of Your Word.
I am bathed in mercy,
I drink deeply of lovingkindness
and then in one lucid moment
a crack in the bulwark within me,
an easing open, if ever small,
and my deepest soul unfurls
like a lily among thorns,
O, the joy of being seen!
I stay, aching, gaping,
wooed by the warmth of Your voice
as it echoes off the bare walls of my heart.
You are kind, You are kind,
so kind it pierces me and I gasp,
I dare to breathe again,
O, the wound of my nakedness!
Here I am,
this is all of me,
I am a garden enclosed;
come and gather the lilies
I have tended for You, my Beloved.

Lately I’ve been thinking about Jesus and what thoughts must have filled His mind as He walked the earth. Did He, like me, feel His heart swell within Him at the sight of the sunrise, knowing that one day there would be no more night in that city coming down, the New Jerusalem, because He would dwell in the midst of His people in unveiled glory so bright that there would no longer be a reason for the sun and the moon (Revelation 21:23)? When He spoke to the crowds in Jerusalem, “From now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’ (Psalm 118:26)” (John 23:39), was His heart drawing strength from the joy set before Him, the day of vengeance hidden in His heart when He would come up from Edom with garments stained red and enter into that city to establish forever His kingdom of righteousness in the earth?

And when He traveled down Jerusalem’s dusty streets did He think back to the glory He had with the Father before the foundation of the world (John 17:24), the very torrent of desire within the Godhead that overflowed into the formation of man in His image, out of dust (Genesis 2:7) just like that which clung to His sandals? What was the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8), the very master craftsman of creation (Proverbs 8:30), thinking when He fashioned the tree whose descendant would one day provide the wood for the cross on which His body hanged? Did He look forward to the day when creation’s groan will cease (Romans 8:19-21) and the trees of the field will clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12) in joy before Him, when the nations will come to Jerusalem for the healing leaves of the tree of life (Revelation 22:2)?

Each new question opens up a new, deep well of awe in my heart before the beautiful God-man, the Father of whom He is the exact representation, the Spirit who searches the depths of God and reveals them to His beloved.

Thank you for reading my first post! I will pray that the Lord will fascinate your heart with the wondrous mysteries of all that He is. Be blessed!