Vineyard Days – “I Have Spent Myself for You”

“Will you receive me this dark night?  My flawless one, will you arise?  
For my heaviness and tears are more than I can bear.  
I have spent myself for you throughout the dark night.” 
Songs 5:2b (TPT) 

“Will you receive Me this dark night?”

The deeper we press, the Song of Solomon continues to be revealed as the Lord’s preserved manuscript of poetic prophecy. The seeking heart that desires to develop a love-relationship with the Lord can relate to the emotions, attitudes, and responses – or lack thereof – of the Beloved to the pursuit and dealings of this Shepherd Lover. 

To all others, it is but a distant record of Solomon seeking after the Shulamite. Until you awaken to its purpose of the Lord making His Bride ready. Then, step by step, there are decisions and choices that come to bear upon one’s heart.

This stark reality landed one day years ago in our counseling office. A male, divorced and seeking help, arrived for his appointment. The session before, my counselor husband had directed him to some of the early Vineyard Days posts that coincided with the internal work they were doing. We greeted him and chatted in the hallway for a few minutes when the 60-million-dollar question was asked: had he read the first few posts that identified the spiritual purpose of the Song of Solomon? His response was immediate as he erupted in anger and vehemently asked why he had never heard this before from any pulpit! His reaction was not from disbelief of the message, but rather, the effect that his realization of the truth had upon his sense of time lost. Not to mention a marriage, spouse, and now-distanced children.

He informed us he would not read any further, period. We grieved, even as we could relate to his pain, anger, and regret, awakened and roiling within. We had walked a painful journey and asked the same question in our past: why had we never heard preached from the pulpit the life-changing substance of the Word to which the Lord had led us? Like that client and many others, and personal relations throughout our lives, we were – after the painful jolt – each faced with what our will would determine.

We made a choice, only to discover that this Love that would not let us go, kept coming time and again to draw us on. No different than the Shulamite’s spiritual journey, or for any who have found Him and determined to not let Him go.

“I have spent Myself for you throughout the dark night”

When I set myself to write this post, I was captured by the scripture, the title, and the accompanying photo I found. For several days, I was so overcome in recalling how He captured my heart and mine, His, that all I could do was wait. Even now, a fresh flow of tears blurs the words as these hands trained for battle attempt to write His heart.

“I have spent myself for you” took on great depth of meaning at this pivotal point in its spiritual purpose of the Song.

Shepherd Lover had not held back in His prophetic description of this one He regarded as His personal Eden. His garden, where He loved to browse among the lilies, was made up of such “Edens.” But night falls in the garden, too.

How hard it had fallen for Jesus, Shepherd Lover / Bridegroom King, that night in Gethsemane. Multiple generations after Solomon, the poetic prophecy of the Song was being fulfilled as Jesus fought the battle of His will in the heart of the night. It was His garden of deep sleep – for His disciples, who could not keep themselves awake to watch with Him; and of thick darkness – for Him. He was overcome with sorrow; asking for a way out, if possible, rather than walking through what lay before Him. Christ himself went through His Father’s processing – once, twice, three times.¹

“My head, My hair”

"My head is drenched with dew,
My hair with the dampness of the night.” 
Song of Songs 5:2b

The literal Hebrew is a gift of confirmation at times. Once more, the Song pointed ahead in poetic prophecy to Jesus’ head “drenched (lit. filled) with dew, His locks with the damp (lit. drops) of the night.” We, on this side of the Shulamite’s story and the journey of Christ to the Cross, are familiar with His agony in Gethsemane. Scripture records that His anguish was so increased that He prayed yet more earnestly; His sweat, as it were, like great drops of blood.²

In His humanity, Jesus no more wanted to go through the hardest part of the journey that lay before Him than we do. In the heart of the darkest night of His life, He interceded for himself. He knew to what He had been called, but it did not alleviate the pain He chose to embrace as He submitted His will to His Father’s highest will. He had testified before, “I have come not to do my will, but the will of the One (his Father) who sent me.”³ It was such desire to please that One, that cemented His will and commitment. It led Him all the way to the Cross and through to the other side. To life.

While on the Cross, beaten and bloodied beyond human recognition, a soldier pierced His side. Water gushed forth like a waterfall, mingling with the drops of His blood that saturated the earth beneath Him as He was lifted high. There is no one worthy but He to approach us in the heart of the night, able to say – “I have spent Myself for you.”

He Approaches Again

This time, to distinguish between perception of His Presence and reception of His Person. “Will you receive Me…?”

As we will see, the Beloved did not make it easy for Him or herself. Neither do we. But like her – we can if we will.

Gracefully Free

¹ Matthew 26:36-45          ² Luke 22:44        ³ John 6:38

Photo: Pexels by Nataliya Vaitkevoich