Leaning
By Paul Rase
In our local community here in Galati, Romania, we take turns each week focusing on and sharing about one of our WMF Lifestyle Celebrations. Recently, I had the opportunity to share in our morning devotion time about obedience.
You have certainly heard this before, but much thought and reflection have gone into the order in which the Lifestyle Celebrations are written, one building upon the others that come before it. It is significant that obedience follows intimacy. We cannot, will not celebrate obedience outside the context of intimacy.
As I was preparing my devotion to share with the others in our community, many images and ideas of obedience filled my mind. My first instinct was to think of soldiers. Some higher-ranking officer gives an order, and the soldiers obey without question. I thought also of slaves. Here again there is a master who gives orders that the slaves obey quickly and without question.
I wonder how many of us see obedience to God in this way. We have often heard, or said ourselves, “I just want to hear the Lord so I can do what He says.” The emphasis here is on action rather than relationship. Though we may do so unconsciously, we easily enter into a soldier or slave mindset: If only God would give the command, we would respond, “Sir, yes, Sir!” and be on our way.
A thread running throughout the Scriptures paints a very different picture of obedience. It is a beautiful, shocking image of obedience as a response to love. And it reveals the appropriate position of such obedience as leaning on the beloved.
Song of Songs is not the most-studied book of the Bible. And when it is studied, many different interpretations are given. One such interpretation, and the primary way I have been reading this book for the past several years, is that of Song of Songs as a story of Christ and His Bride.
Near the beginning of the book, the Bride cries out, “Draw me after you and let us run together!” (1:4a, NASB). Although there is a desire for intimacy found here, the cry itself is immature. It is a call for activity. It is the cry that many, myself included, have cried: “I want to change the world!”
After a long and painful journey over the next seven chapters, the Bride is found in a very different state near the conclusion of the book. Speaking of her, it reads: “Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on
her beloved?” (8:5a).
This is the beginning of obedience: leaning. This is the starting and ending position of an obedience founded in intimacy. This is where we will hear the Lord — leaning, like John, on His bosom. But it is also from here, leaning in full dependence on Jesus, that we will act. Obedience and intimacy. Intimacy and obedience. We will not separate them.
Paul Rase is an educator at WMF Romania’s Casa “La Vale” (“Valley” House), spending much of each day frustrating the children with math problems.