The Invitation by Tracy Williamson

I was reading in the Song of Solomon today and a verse stopped me in my tracks:

'My lover spoke and said to me, 'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one and come with me.' (2:10)  

'Arise.'  He was calling me.  'Arise, Tracy' look up from what you are doing, turn away from the things that are holding your attention.  Will you put them aside, just for a moment?  I've come to be with you.  I want to talk with you, to share my heart and for you to share yours.  Arise.  Come be with me.'  

In the poem the beloved is already in a place of attentive listening and that is why she hears her lover calling her.  

But the question came to me, am I already in a place of attentive listening?  Do I expect to hear His call to arise?  When I see how His words were so full of tender, intimate love 'my darling, my beautiful one,' do I expect Him to have that same longing in His voice when He calls me?  

Through these beautiful verses Jesus is inviting you and me to come be with Him.  He wants to whisper in your ear that you are His darling.  That means you, yes you, and me, are the focus of His attention, the magnet to His longing.  He has the whole universe to sustain and bring to salvation but He longs for you and for me and time just to be together.

Do we hear Him call?  Are we already watching for His presence and listening for His voice?  Or are we, like Martha, distracted by many things?  I find it so easy to be a Martha, full of good intentions but easily distracted from the most important.

But He is calling.  He calls me beautiful and you too.  

I see myself as ugly and lacking but He calls me, 'My darling, my beautiful one.' 

He wants to romance me, for me to come be with Him, wherever He is.  To hear His voice and feel the tenderness of His longing love.  

Will I arise, this Summer?  This Month?  This Week, Day or Moment?  

And will I hear that invitation, not just to stand up and put other things aside, not just to be attentive to His voice of love, but to 'come with Me.'  

I've held back many times and placed priorities so often on everything but Him.  

But He never stops calling me.  Will I allow Him to take me in a different direction?  Will I have eyes to see the new, amazing things He wants to tell me>  Will I take His hand and walk together with Him?  

What will I see?  What will I hear?  What will I experience as I hear His invitation, rise up and go to be with Him? 

Tracy Williamson.