Song of Solomon 2:10 My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away,
Listen—I hear the voice of my Beloved. He is speaking to me. The beauty of spring is waking the earth, and he does not want me to remain spiritually asleep while everything around me is coming back to life. He calls me to “rise up,” and he is right to do so. I have spent long enough among the distractions and dust of this world. He has risen, and I have been raised with him, so why should I keep clinging to the ground?
I want to rise above lesser loves, small ambitions, selfish desires, and worldly pursuits, and move closer to him. He calls me by the tender name “my love” and says that I am beautiful to him. That alone should move my heart to respond. If he has lifted me up and looked on me with such grace, how can I stay comfortable among things that pull me away from him?
He says, “Come away.” He calls me farther and farther from selfishness, from sin, from worldliness, and from anything that keeps my soul cold toward him. Even from outward religion that does not truly know him, he calls me into deeper fellowship with himself. His invitation is not harsh; it is beautiful. What is there in this wilderness of vanity and sin that should hold me back?
Lord, I want to come away to you, but I feel caught among the thorns and cannot free myself as I wish. If it were possible, I would have no eyes, ears, or heart for sin. Your call to “come away” is a melody to my soul. To come to you is to come home from exile, to reach shore after a storm, to find rest after long labor, and to arrive at the very place my heart has always longed for.
But Lord, how can a stone rise? How can a lump of clay climb out of the pit by itself? Lift me up. Draw me near. Your grace can do what I cannot. Send your Holy Spirit to kindle holy love in my heart, and I will keep rising toward you until I leave this life behind and truly come away to be with you. (Spurgeon)
