Adored, Part 4

"Do not bid love wake until it so desires,
Though it demand all cost from you and fires
On this fallen sphere! Your heart He will reform,
And teach it how to persevere through storm
Of hate of men, and tear your idols down.
Yet those standing till the end receive a crown;
Those He makes to love Him will facedown
Love Him through ceaseless praise in endless day,
Not for a second find Him far away,
Enjoying deeply all pleasures He purveys
To each child who His cross surveys
And throws upon this Lamb their trust entire."

Eventually, she will comprehend love's strength,
Extending past the end of her life's length
On Old Earth, her death-purchased soul to save,
Kept by the Spirit's seal to drown the grave.
His love for her cannot be quenched by wave
Or wind, both of which He created and arranged
To try her, that her feeble faith may change
From one glory to the next through her life's range.

Her Lover saved her broken heart astray.
This time, she bids her Lover: "Come away."
She trusts Him in His ever-helpful care;
Even when His love guides, "Come down from there!"

We yearn for our sight to become more clear;
We fast because our Bridegroom is not here.
The future glory still lingers past our view;
Let us gaze on it, that we may gaze on You!

"Come", the word of love's gracious, binding cord;
"Abide", to hold fast to love our Lord;
Kill the sins that Jesus has abhorred;
The Savior Who came with dividing sword
Paid the highest for His future Bride adorned:
Not many wise, not many noble,
Not many learned and some ignoble,
To prove that no condition moves His choice,
But all of grace, His sheep hark to His voice
And follow Him, to gain a great reward.
Know this: You did not choose those who He has adored.

Adored, Part 3

And He rejoices in the beloved - who?
Beautiful, lovely, majestic,
Overwhelming the Lover with radiant eyes;
Cascading, persuading, symmetric,
Stealing His gaze as His favorite prize;
Increasing in light as she wins in the fight
To be more like Christ and send idols to flight,
Clear to His sharp sight, she has shone in the night.
The crushed and contrite now love to do right.

He goes on with love-drunk comparisons:
Jewels, handiwork, eternal with wine;
Lilies, fawns, His own grand design;
Pools, tower, crowning glory;
More perfect than any stone cut from the quarry.

She asks for the lovers' escape,
That they may check on the shape
Of the fruits of the vines.
And her heart has inclined,
At last, to submit to her Lover on this day;
His cords of love had bid her, "Come away."

As their new world bears new eccentricity,
Electricity burns the air with unflagging intensity.
"Brevity" does not convey their new reverie,
Though devils came at them with powerful weaponry.
They chase after ecstasy endlessly,
Till the next day breaks steadily to end the night's ebony.
God's grace effectively provided the rarity
That they enjoy this true love eternally without any penalty.
The Father, staged centrally, has marked out her destiny.
His Son's death was her sinful leprosy's remedy.
She would then merrily display the King's heraldry,
As He told her with verity and inspired clarity.

"If only You were my brother--", she starts a cry -
He finishes: "You share with Me in the divine!"
"I could kiss You without shame--",
"Yet shame is a proper name
That I'll take in your world. I'll never own a house frame
Or the applause of men when I tell them to adjust their aim
And look on Me. Yet the bitten cannot in their nature grasp
That to be saved, they must regard the Brazen Asp."

She knows now how to feel her Love's embrace.
Yet to the world, why would she claim a man debased
By the tortures of a cross as her own friend -
More than a friend, more than a brother?
Why would she go to great lengths to defend
And have this strange desire to suspend
Herself on a tree too, her breath to spend,
If this world tells her to deny her Lover?

Adored, Part 2

And then she sees a sovereign king arrive,
With more glory than her mind could e'er contrive.
She cannot contain the excitement in her voice:
"I can see him now! This day, his heart rejoiced!"

He showers this youthful peasant maid with praise.
Do we even see the role this dame portrays?
In her wide eyes, we see the church - today's.
Christ the Lover sees perfection with His eyes amazed.

The law screams, "I must judge you with your death!"
Grace, louder, cries, "Dead sinner, have life's breath!"
Justice roars, "Drink My wrath's eternal cup!"
Forgiveness silences the din: "Your garden has always been locked up!"

He sees the resplendent jewels he gave this daughter
As a reminder of why He did not slaughter
Her under His law's demands, but gave her grace -
Her, being all His chosen race, both Jew and Greek -
Not the self-righteous strong, but the helpless weak -
Who see themselves in His light and are undone,
Who turn from wicked ways to kiss the Son.

He has many bigger yards from more well-known saints to darken,
But the Lover stands here right now to hearken
To the call of His dearly beloved in her garden.
And then He says, "This is My garden!
I will not see what the foxes have trodden,
The years the locusts have eaten or countless sins wanton.
It is - you are -
Complete
and sinless
and wonderful
and fruitful
and altogether beautiful to Me!"

And she will look upon her Lover - every saint! -
And see Him with no flaw or any taint
Though His appearance on this earth would not make anyone desire Him.

Yet here, we love Him with such imperfect passion.
He wishes to enthrall us, but we find our satisfaction
In fleeting little pleasures.
Our feet are washed, and off has gone the robe.
Complacently, we engage this present globe,
Too slack to love the Treasure.

Still, by Lover's grace, Beloved wakes:
"Help my unbelief, although it snakes
Throughout my imperfect love for You and shakes,
At times, my faith that You still love, 'spite my mistakes."
Yet the bolt to her door no longer quakes;
The Lover has gone for now, but never breaks
The bruised reed in the shallows of the lakes.
"Faint with love", she stands out from the fakes.

And she waits for His return - whose?
Radiant, wavy, purest of the pure;
Washed, anchored, sweeter than dripped myrrh;
Rods, pillars, bases, all secure;
Choice, sweet, His words the perfect lure.
"This is my Lover, who takes the highest precedence,
Heaven's one High King; gaze with me on His excellence!"

He stands now in a field, gathering the chosen
Lilies from the surrounding lands, as spoken
By His Father with perfect voice,
In perfect submission to the Father's choice
Of whom to bestow His saving grace,
Not those with no flaws in their face,
Trusting in law-keeping, self-sufficient faith,
But the infants to whom He revealed His grace,
To claim for His sole glory their law-place.

Adored, Part 1

Here lies a solitary rose,
Isolated, but for the hurt of human's foot,
Stormy weather's ravage, and time's decay -
A flower that no romantic chose
To give his darling, for the grimy soot
Surrounding it would make her turn away.

Here stands a maiden to one side,
Ashamed of her beauty, for she has worked outside -
Her words of comfort to herself, she sighs,
In contrast to the looks that say, "You'll never be a wife",
From girls in dollhouses, with the light-skinned, easy life:
"Dark may my skin appear, but fair am I."

Yet He, the Lover, sees no flaw in her:
Among the thorns, He sees His choicest fleur.
He will not defer the honor He confers:
"I love you for what I will make you, not what you were."

They say, "Hasten now before the moment dies",
Yet today, love stays bound with virtue's ties.
In this story now, it leads her to surmise:
True love has not desired to arise.

After gazing out all day, now her eyes will widen:
She sees her faithful Lover leaping hills on the horizon.
He ran days' journey so that she could see His face,
Like the prodigal's father, letting law give way to grace.

With storms of winter past, the trees bud with the signs
That springtime, by design, has brought life's signs to the vines.
Yet early in this story we still see this lesson hard:
Many fruit-destroying foxes still roam His sacred yard.

She tries to catch each fox alone, but they slip from her hands.
They keep running over every plant in the small vineyard's spans.
But mercy still flows from the future-scarred hands of the Lover:
For these idols He purges from His Bride, His death stands to cover!

The Lover seems to disappear, though her heart still desires
To take today to make way for their love's burning fires.
Yet to do it all now would wrap her in dire briars.
"True love still sleeps now", she repeats the refrain prior.

But oh, how her heart burns when she seems spurned.
His hard lesson: Leave no idol's stone unturned!
Her heart has sins to kill, not just to maim.
He has a sweeter stone to give her: white, with a new name.