The Feast of First Love
Posted In: #BlueFlame47, Terraforming Written on March 6, 2020.
Jesus asked us to remember. He asked us to be re-membered. At the table of testimony.
Tables are the best built bridges. These bridges are not meant to be bare but laden with the feast we have found. That found us.
Blue
In the Old Testament, a basket was something in which grapes, figs, first fruits and deliverers were gathered. A place for the provision of His promises.
In the New Testament, baskets held the “fragments” for the miracle of multiplication.
The Hebrew word for basket or bowl is ‘gullah’ which means “to bring forth, to rise, to spring.”
When we rise, they are filled.
What will we carry? His reputation. Yes, but not in a way that protects or separates. We carry the fulness of Him, our finding of Him by the revealing of who He is to us.
When we cross the threshold and open the gate.
The Hebrew word for “gate” – ‘shaar’ is formed from shin-ayin-resh.
Shin – The passionate or stormy love of God.
Ayin – Senses, insight
Resh – Return
That which allows us to pass through the gates into the stormy, passionate love of God for another person and allows us through all of our senses, to invite a return.
When we realize that we love Him most, for who we are when we are with Him, we feast.
We once walked with Him. Within His love. We once cherished each moment. Days were spent worshiping truly. His love was allowed to overwhelm us. We walked and talked, endlessly. He is our First Love. The world is looking for the things First Love gave. Gives still.
Anxieties didn’t come until we sought other gods before Him. Other things that can’t fill us with all He can. With what First Love gives. The world is in valley of despair, but it is simply longing for days it is of. That we are for. Like Ruth, who returned also.
Hosea 2:14-16 says:
“But now I am going to woo her —I will bring her out to the desert and I will speak to her heart. I will give her her vineyards from there and the Akhor Valley as a gateway to hope. She will respond there as she did when young, as she did when she came up from Egypt. ‘On that day,’ says Adonai, ‘you will call me Ishi [My Husband]; you will no longer call me Ba‘ali [My Master].”
My paraphrase:
Behold I am going to draw you back to the place where love is awakened, the wilderness. To the place where I provide, I protect and I pursue. There we can share our love with each other. The place we are alone, set apart, so we can all be together. The sacred space, where we used to go, there I still am. I am still I Am.
I long to speak gently to you and graft my heart to yours. I will bare my heart so you can break it. But I believe that you won’t.
As we go together, I will give your vineyards back. Your homes and your families. Your peace and your joy. Your rest. The hemming in that you long for. In the place of lost hope, I will invite you to trust. I will take you in my arms, embracing every difference, so we can delight again. I will carry you away, just as I did in those first days. When you were enslaved in missed marks and muddy light, I encompassed you and drew you near to me. I long to do it still.
Will you begin to call me your husband again and remind them, all of them, that we are married?
I will pursue and win. I will ask my bride again.
Will you let me take you away and renew our vows?
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