Arise and Come Away With Me…

There is this girl that has been making my life miserable lately. I blame her for the misery she has put me in for the past 29 years. She is insecure, a control-freak and way too needy. Her influence on my life has lessened dramatically in the past five years but the residue of her mistakes continue to show up occasionally and it has become rather annoying. This girl’s name is Eve (last name unknown). She existed probably about 6,000 years ago and I really don’t understand what her problem was because she got to walk with God (yes God) in the “cool of the day.” She literally got to hear His voice every day and have actual audible conversation with Him. Not only that but she lived in the most beautiful place that has ever existed alongside a handsome man who became her covenant partner for life. I’m pretty sure they had an almost perfect relationship. What would a girl give to just know that this “was the one” because, well, God plainly told her that he was “the one”. No guessing games… no games at all. Just love and romance and no sin to mess any of it up… yet.

Well, one day in the garden of Eden (think, rain forest with no humidity), Eve feels that familiar tummy grumble. She saunters up to a nearby fruit tree and then remembers… “oops. I’m not suppose to eat fruit from this tree. God said.” But before she has a chance to get the heck out of there this slimeball serpant hisses menacingly at her. Eve is decieved into thinking that even with her perfect body and her perfect mind, she is not “enough”. Not only is she not “enough” but God is holding out on her. He’s withholding good things from her. With all of that time hanging out with God, you would think Eve would know His charecter a little better than that.

So Eve decides to take her life into her own hands. She disobeys, believing that her ways are higher than His and not the other way around. This desire to control her own life results in disastor for all of humanity, especially for the female species. God curses Eve and in verse 16 of Chapter 3 it says “and your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you.” Researching the word “desire” in the Hebrew I discovered that it’s real meaning is “be determined to assert our will over”. In other words… “our desire will be to control.” I was a little offended upon first reading this. I don’t think of myself as a control freak and to be perfectly honest, I’ve wondered at times if I’m a little too laid back about things. But as I talked to the Holy Spirit about this I recognized many ways in which subtle control had taken precedence in my life. I’ve manipulated, competed with other girls, acted out of insecurity… all familiar behaviors of most of the women I have ever known.

So what does this mean? Does it mean I have to live under this blasted curse for the rest of my life? Ummm…. no! Because, you see there was this amazing man that suffered and died and shed his blood so that I didn’t have to live under the curse anymore. Yes, we can still decide to live under the affects of the curse if we allow ourselves to, but we don’t have to.

We women have a bad case of mistaken identity. 2 Peter 1:3 says that God “has given us everthing pertaining to life and godliness”. We have the best that we can have and He is offering it to us on a silver platter. We need to stop insisting that our way is the best because… hello?… I’m pretty sure that God, glorious and majestic, has way way better stuff for us than what we can get for ourselves.

We also need to stop thinking that we aren’t enough! Hebrews 12:2 says that “for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame.” We are the joy that was set before Him. To Him, we are worth His suffering, worth His shame and even worth being seperated from His Father for a time. We are worth EVERYTHING to Him.

So it is time to give Him our lives and let Him have control. We obviously aren’t doing a good job trying to figure things out on our own. We’re only causing a greater rift in our relationships with both men AND women.

In Song of Songs we see this amazing relationship between a bride and her husband. It starts out a little shaky. There are a few times that she wants to do things her way. In chapter 2 she says, “you go on without me while I sit here under this apple tree and do things the way I want to do them”. So He does. He heads over to the mountains without her and lets her be by herself for awhile and the favor and protection lifts off of her and she realizes that there is no way on earth she could ever live her life without Him. What was she thinking? We see this a couple of times. She tries to take control and then she has to learn the hard way. It’s when she reaches Chapter 8 that I become a little jealous: “who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?” She finally gets it. And then in the preceding verses she discovers an unrelenting, unquenchable love full of desire and passion that will satisfy her for eternity.

It is in that moment when we finally give up trying to find “the best” that we discover all that our heart’s are longing for. It is in that moment when we forfeit control that we learn to fall in love with the One God intended, the One who’s love is perfect and fully satisfying.