Sometimes I am tempted to give up, to accept defeat and admit that I really am as terrible as I think I am, and that I am wired that way and there is little hope for change anyway. I was not much surprised when I had a dream recently in which I recognized myself as an ugly hunchback; that is generally how I see myself in real life. Who could love that?

But I finished reading the Song of Solomon a few days after that, and it suddenly dawned on me that, "It’s only Satan who sees me that way." This was such an epiphany: it is only Satan who sees me as ugly and deformed. God sees me as a very good creation of His; whenever He describes me, it is as He sees me, which is that there is no flaw in me (SoS 4:7). And He loves me completely. This blows my mind. 

We are so finite in everything: our loves and hates are so very limited in scope. No wonder we can barely comprehend agape love by ourselves. But God’s God-ness keeps rearing its head. His love is superlative in every sense of the word. His love for me is far more complex and complete than I can ever grasp or imagine. It is beyond the ability of my human faculties to comprehend. Paul cannot help but extol it (Rom. 8:35-39). Unlike all the brokenness of human love which disappoints us when we most need it, John says that God's love is a love we can rely on (1 Jn. 4:16). 

I need this lesson because I tend to forget. Too often, in the throes of depression, reflecting on a bad day, week or month, when I am exasperated by my own inadequacy and confronted by my failings, I wonder how anyone could ever put up with me. I search the corners of my memory and find that there is precious little good that would inspire anyone’s affection. In those moments, I cannot fathom how even God could really say that He really loves me, just as I am. 

But what kept striking me as I meditated on the Song of Songs is that inasmuch as God Himself sometimes expresses His emotions with human pictures (e.g., in Hosea), we dare not humanize His love. God loves me as only He does, as only He could. He loves me more than anyone ever would. He loves me when no one could, or does. He loves me when I don't love myself. He loves me when I am so hateful that I am beyond shame. He still always unbelievably loves me.

This is what Song of Solomon teaches me about God’s technicolour love for me. It is in no wise passive, reactive or dull. That love remains the same, even as He is unchanging. Though it is hard to believe, He does not love me more when I am good and less when I am bad. Of course, evangelicals are rightly hesitant to preach this too hard: even Christians are so quick to find loopholes for sin. But it doesn't change the fact that God's love is steadfast and unchanging (Lam. 3:22). I love the word “steadfast” because it refuses conditionalities. Our love is so affected by knowledge; His transcends it. Ours is crippled by previous experiences with others; He loves each of us individually, and His mercies are new every morning. Even the expression of our love can so easily be corrupted by our human weaknesses; but in every way possible, God demonstrates a perfect love to us. 

Learning from Solomon's R-rated book about how God loves me challenges me to be Christlike in my loving, even of myself. How does God love me?

1. He sees me as beautiful. 

 The Song of Solomon makes me blush. Even speed-reading through the cringy references to breasts and the shameless sensualization of lips, teeth, hair and navel, I cannot help but have that awkward sense of having stumbled upon two lovers in an intimate moment. They even crack little inside jokes about opening up gardens and whatnot—plenty of room for fertile imaginations to wax impure. But when God helps me to step above the humanization of love, I can suddenly see how God describes us; describes, in fact, me. And, oh, how gorgeous He thinks I am!

There is a demonic voice of self-hate that many of us battle with. It reminds us of our follies, mocks our successes, downplays our gifts. In more sinister moments, it seeks to convince us that we are beyond hope and unlovable, that we have been abandoned and could never be redeemed, that we might as well end it now since all we are is so useless. If you have been listening to that voice, you need to know how untrue it is. You need to read the Song of Solomon with new eyes, recognizing God’s voice as He—truly and unpretentiously lovesick—calls you beautiful, precious, flawless. And guess what? He does not, can not, and will not lie, so it must be true even when you don’t feel it or believe it.

2. He forgives me when I pull back. 

The Beloved is such a girl; I think this when I get to Chapter 5 of the book. Here she is, waxing poetic about her Lover and talking about him to all her friends and daydreaming about him as he’s working and with his friends. Now, here he comes, but she has "taken off [her] robe—must [she] put it on again? [She has] washed [her] feet—must [she] soil them again?" It’s so hard for her to pay a little price for the love of her life. We too! How many times has prayer not seemed such a chore? ...has the Bible not been a requirement? ...has our Quiet Time not become some dreary and dreaded burden on our shoulders? That moment of hesitation, of resentment even, is sometimes not just a moment, but transcends into days, weeks, months, and (oh, the sorrow) perhaps years. 

When we finally come to our senses, as the Beloved did, as the Prodigal Son did, we are suddenly struck with a horrified panic. How could we let Him go? How could we have been so foolish and reckless with such a treasure? More heartrendingly, how can we recover what we have lost? Now again, Satan’s voice booms louder and clearer. "Paradise is lost," he jeers. "You have squandered your only chance. You had it and then you blew it. You'll never get Him again." But again, only Satan speaks like that. God is always giving us another chance to return to Him, even when we have been lazy and careless, even when it’s blatantly our fault, even when we should have known better and done better. God forgives us even then. 

The infinity of His forgiveness can also not be grasped by human minds. To let anything go for 70 times 7 times already seems such a herculean task for us (Matt. 18:21,22); but God always forgives our iniquities and restores us to a relationship with Himself, no matter how many times we come crawling back. Peter’s heart-wrenching sobs on that fateful night must have seemed to him the end of the world. When Jesus finds him again and gives him another chance to serve, he can barely believe it: "Lord, You know all things. You know that I love You," he declares (Matt.  21:17).

3. He loves me when my brothers despise me. 

God also loves us when others don’t. He’s the only One who can love us when nobody else does, when nobody could. I read of a man who brutally murdered his wife and two toddlers, and pretended they were missing for several months, only to finally be exposed as the culprit because of some tawdry affair he was having. The story disgusted me. Some time later, he was in the news again: he had reportedly become born again while in jail. I immediately recoiled in horror that he too had been granted repentance, and then had to quickly check my heart. 

This is the human condition: even we think we are better than others, more deserving of God’s love. At least, we console ourselves, we are not like that publican (Lk. 18:9-14). Just as the Prodigal Son’s elder brother was so scandalized at his father's warm reception for a renegade son, we are so quick to point the finger, to throw stones and cast aspersions, to toss people out of church by our actions and inactions—we cannot love some people because of some things. But God loves them even then. He loved Jesus when everyone hated Him (Isa. 53:2,3; Matt. 3:17), and He loves us even when we are the ones pointing the finger. The father of those two sons loved them both, though in different ways: to the Prodigal Son’s elder brother, he still spoke so tenderly. 

I am fanciful when I read SoS 1:6; it must have been some kind of Cinderella fairy-tale for the Beloved to find that though she had been dismissed and despised by her brothers, and gawked at for her burned skin, the King found her worthy of this shiny kind of love. He was not dissuaded by the hard work they made her do in the field, by the things missing in her cosmetics because she was attending to their vineyards instead of her own. Like a lovestruck fool, he came after her despite her unworthiness. Where everyone else saw ordinary, he was enraptured by her beauty: every single part of her was his enthralled melody. In guileless praise, he called her a lily among brambles (SoS 2:2). What a disarming love, that finds us when everyone turns their back on us, that understands all our misinterpreted motives, and sees the sincerest heart of our hearts; that also sees us when we truly deserve to be despised, that knows when even our good deeds have stemmed from a blackened heart, that sees us naked in all our miserable sin, but still says to us, "Come anyway. I love you."

4. He loves me enough to make me do my part.

 God’s love remains incomprehensible to the merely human mind; it simply is too good to believe. Many times, His commands for us to love our enemies, to decide simply not divorce, to submit ourselves to others and consider them worthy of greater honor than ourselves, to forgive them even when they are hurting us over and over again, to be patient and kind, and to bless even those who curse us and are against us, are impossible for us as we are. Agape love could never be human; it is always divine. And that's fitting, because God doesn't love like we love. This matters because human love falls easily into the trap of idolization, until we cannot rebuke enough (1 Kings 1:6; 1 Sam. 3:13) or say that this is not good (Exod. 18:17). We can forgive too much and discipline too little (Prov. 13:24; 29:15). Not so God. 

His love requires that we do our part. In SoS 2:15, the Lover makes a point of exhorting the Beloved to "Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom.” I am surprised that though He is stronger than her, and though He loves the Beloved so much, He insists that she be the one to catch the little foxes. Of course, He makes sure that it’s never more than she can handle: they are only “little” foxes that she must overcome, but it must be her. In a strange way, this incredible love has nothing at all to do with her virtues, but simultaneously depends on her striving to sustain it. The evangelicals may be consoled by this. This is where my spiritual disciplines come into play, where my wrestle with my besetting sins is situated, where my constant and intentional throwing away of everything and running after God begins. He loves me this much, but I must love Him back for this to really work. This, for me, is a beauty of the Song of Solomon: that it is not a one-sided love. He is a lovestruck fool, but so is she. He thinks the universe of her, but so does she of him. He calls her perfect; she calls him perfect. His love is never an excuse for her to let herself go.

5. He loves me enough to take me away. 

Finally, Chapter 2:10-13 reads like the part of a love letter which invites me to a secret rendezvous. My Lover will come to take me away, on some giddy eternal elopement to a place of real paradise. One day, we will leave behind this long and dark winter. All the rain of sorrow will finally cease. Finally, forever, we shall be with the Lord. Can you imagine it? No more tears, the Revelator says, no more death, sorrow, crying or pain, for the former things will have thankfully passed away (Rev. 21:4). Heartbreak, inadequacy, and that blindness to the presence and heart of God will be a distant memory. The Spirit and the Bride can only desperately cry, "Come, Lord Jesus. Come and take us away." And if there is no sort of this yearning in your heart, Apostle Paul releases a bitter curse on you (1 Cor. 16:22)—for how can you remain insensitive to this great romancing?

God’s love for us must humble us all. Paul was ever in awe that grace found him (1 Cor. 15:8; 1 Tim. 1:12-16); he never ceased to wonder at the love that surpasses all knowledge (Eph. 3:18,19; Rom. 8:35-39). I invite you to a brand new revelation of this love. 

First, I join you to implore the Holy Spirit of God to help us respond to Him in a manner that is worthy of His regard. But second, I pray that we will be able to silence the voice of our accuser, the enemy of our souls, who could never love us even if he tried. I pray that we will learn to shut him up with the unwavering truth of God’s love for us. And finally, I pray that we would be a little more merciful to ourselves, not ruminating on dark lies about our worth because of some inability to attain heights— whether physical or spiritual—that we feel we ought to have reached by now. God bless us as He loves us.