Sitting outside of my apartment readying to write this blog I am aware of God’s Presence. The rat-race traffic buzzes passed just beyond the grey security wall. A soft misty drizzle teases.
I finished ‘Song of Songs’. As per my practice as I read God’s Word I always ask God to teach me what He is guiding me towards, helping me to understand correctly. I am far too afraid to, deliberately, get God’s Word wrongly divided.
Man, my coffee is perfectly brewed today. Yum!!!
I was undecided whether this phenomenal Holy Scripture in Song of Songs would be a Facebook post or a blog. The Holy Spirit, as He does, pricked my interest about this undeniable truth about true love versus manufactured love so I went outside as if to soak in all of God’s Glory through nature. As I settled on the idea to write outside, driven by the magnificent poetry in Song of Songs, God just opened heaven in my heart. Voila, a blog it is.
Song of Songs 8 vs 6-7 is a knock-out punch in the closing of the book. I cannot help to be drawn into God’s Purpose of putting the lesson on love after quickening our hearts by the sheer intoxicating romance of true love (SOS 8 vs 6)- a love thats hurts because one is forced to live the rest of life separate, sometimes, from the passion that consumes us when we discover true, authentic, and genuine love as God wants for us. As God feels for us.
Song of Songs 8 vs 7, “But if any tried to buy love with their wealth, contempt is all they would get.”
God unravels my memories. I remember the times I tried buying/earning love. I tried so hard to be perfect for others. I was explosive sexually, always ready to jump ‘how high’ at other’s beck-n-call, and willing to work things out. Naturally, tears come. THE TRUTH, however, as distasteful as it is, is that I did not love myself. My childhood never granted me the opportunity to see healthy love modeled. I, like too many of us, learned love by what its not, and invented a version of what it is by trying to be the opposite.
God, our MAGNIFICENT FATHER, has patiently walked me through my unlearning of my perspectives of love. I have needed, and still need, much learning of love as God defines love. After all God IS LOVE and by proxy the inventor of what love is and should be.
I have failed, miserably by God’s Standard of love. You?
The end result of my trying to earn love is exactly as Songs of Songs 8 vs 6-7 say it will be- CONTEMPT.
My ill version of love brought me deeper contempt for myself. My Codependency needed to be broken. My love was a subconscious business exchange- if I am all you need, then you must love me. When my neuro-programmed perspective of love was unrequited I tried even harder. This made me a prime target for narcissistic abuse. And boy did I attract them.
SO WHY DOES ‘BOUGHT LOVE‘ YIELD CONTEMPT?
It starts with the point of origin- God. God is love. In His love, from, and out of His Love, God crafted us. Therefore our natural habitat is love. When we sell ourselves short by removing ourselves from love, as GOD PROCLAIMS it to be, we begin the journey of contempt for ourselves. We disregard who we are, because God says so, and we sell our love per our understanding of love.
But, because love is who we are, the price we put on ourselves, as we try be the Worldly Imprinted narrative of what love is, based on our experiences and perspectives of those experiences, trigger warnings explode like dynamite in us. We begin to hate ourselves. It typically sounds something like this, “I am doing all of this for you, and this is how you treat my love.”
We are bargaining on our worth, hoping our worth is validated. More often than not it isn’t and we are left doubting if we have any worth at all.
We are in the wrong. Sorry. We are bargaining on a worth felt, correctly, within ourselves. A gift from God to let us know we are His. But, instead of going to the origin of that love we seek it from others. We, simply, do not have the capacity, to love as unconditionally as God loves us. We live in disappointment and contempt, wondering if love is even real.
IT IS. OH BOY, IT IS!!!
BUT……….
We, as I am learning, first need to put our love in the right place- GOD, OUR CREATOR. When you and I make the effort to know the Source of Love, what follows is that we can give love freely.
When you and I buy love to earn love we have taken the rare and priceless gift and made it sewerage. This is why, most often, we begin to act like sewerage. We self-destruct into addictions, self-harm, hate of others, controlling nature’s, and disdain for all things beautiful.
Song of Songs is achingly stunning. God reminds us that TRUE, AUTHENTIC, HONEST, FREELY-GIVEN LOVE is found in the Gift of Himself to us for us to experience through Him to love from love all the world around us.
PRAY THIS:
Father God,
In the Mighty Name of Messiah King Jesus who is the perfection of love, please help me lose my contempt of myself, others, and You. I see how I have imagined love that has devalued me and made me lose the wonder of love as You define it. Please heal my wrong ideas, helping me to rediscover my worth in love as You made me. Forgive me for hurting myself, others, and allowing myself to be cheaply abused by others who also don’t know love through Your Eyes. Help me love as You do.
AMEN
PLAY THIS:
#Hayibo 