Song 2:15 “Catch the foxes for us,
The little foxes that are ruining the vineyards,
While our vineyards are in blossom.”
Song 2:16 “My beloved is mine, and I am his;
He pastures his flock among the lilies.
I want to go back and visit this previous section once more before we move forward.
As I’ve mentioned already, lilies speak of set apart, surrendered lives. They can also speak of those places in our hearts that have been set apart, and even though there is from time to time failure, that long for holiness. Twice in the Song, in the context of stumbling, the Shulamite acknowledges that Jesus pastures among the lilies. We’ve already said much about that, concerning a place where He can abide in us, and feed on our surrendered hearts, and nourish those who are living set apart lives, but there is one more thing I want us to see, and it is one of the most precious truths found in scripture revealing the true nature of God’s personality.
Often, when we stumble, the accuser comes and tells us that we will never make it into fulness. He tries to convince us to give up in light of repeated failure. He wants us to believe that even though God will forgive us again, He doesn’t have much hope for us either to really grow from glory to glory. This is such a lie from hell, and is meant to steal our hope in real Christlike change. The truth is, instead of condemning us when we fail, He does more than just forgive us. He goes down deep into our hearts, where our holy longings reside, and He nourishes them. He doesn’t condemn our hearts; He reminds us of those times when we did say yes to Him, and how our longing to love Him more by our obedience, reveals the real person we are as new creations. He nourishes our hope for more by affirming how much He believes in us. He doesn’t pound us with the past record of failures; instead He nourishes and builds up those set apart places in us by reminding us of our past successes in obedience, and then encourages us to get up and go again. This is who He is. He is the God of hope, not hopelessness.