Come Away with Me

I was reading in my Celtic Daily Prayer Guide (which is as awesome as it sounds) and these words struck my imagination….

Arise, my love, my fair one,

And come away with me.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

And come away with me.

For lo, the winter is passed

And the rain is gone away.

Come away with me,

come away with me.

The flowers appear on the earth,

The time for singing has come,

And the voice of the turtle-dove

Is heard in the land.

Come away with me.

The fig-tree puts forth its fruit,

The vines are in blossom,

They put forth their fragrance,

O come away with me

Arise, my love, my fair one,

And come away with me.

Arise, my love, my fair one,

And come away with me.

O come away with me,

Come away

With me.

By John and Ross Harding

This poem is clearly taken from Song of Songs 2:10 “My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.”

What a moving picture of God and His invitation. When God calls a person….He call them to “come away with Him.” His invitation is not “come with Me” it is “come AWAY with Me.” Away means separation…distance. In other words, God desires to be alone with each of us. Come AWAY with me is an invitation to deeper intimacy. A pulling away from the things of this world and a pulling toward Him. The word solitary comes to mind…yet not solitary confinement. It is more like the tender desire I have to be alone and spend time with my wife after we have been distanced for a measure of time.

I am sure that many have no knowledge of the sweetness of time “away with God.” But to those who have known time “away with Him,” the preciousness of the invitation is not lost. Perhaps nothing in this earth is more precious that God’s loving invitation “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away with me.” Perhaps nothing is more precious to God than one of His own responding “I will come away with You today.”

(BTW—You can find the Celtic Daily Prayer here http://www.amazon.com/Celtic-Daily-Prayer-Northumbria-Community/dp/0060013249/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248779634&sr=8-1 )