"I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished, and the pomegranates budded." (S.O.S. 6:11)
If I say this is hard, I would be wrong and not trusting God as I should; I have no idea some days what it is that God wants me to say; but, whether you can accept it or not, that is perfectly fine and good. One of my favorite writers, Watchmen Nee, says of the, "garden of nuts," that it speaks of the Word; as if to say, you must crack open the shell in order to get to the meat; rightly dividing the word of truth. Some shells are harder to crack open than others, and some crack open better when pressed against another of its kind.
Without any more hesitations, I would like to draw attention to the word, "see," as it is shown twice within this verse; much like when Jesus might have said, "Verily, verily." Comparing these two words together, it is like Exodus 3:2 & 3, as the LORD, "appeared," and Moses, "looked." "And Moses said, I will now turn aside to "see", this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." As many of us know, or should know, when Eve was tempted in the garden, it was by sight that she was enticed, being captivated by something she had already longed for, or wanted to experience.
It is only common sense to figure out that Eve was there at that special tree, because she admired it; it was alluring and mysteriously attractive. She knew she couldn't eat of it, and she was told, somehow, she couldn't touch it; but she obviously believed it to be okay to look upon, taking in the mysterious qualities that it possessed. (I had better not get ahead of myself, as this skirts very close to what comes next.) As she takes in these qualities, there is a transformation that occurs within her heart: that tree is made into something of hers; something that is forbidden to touch or eat, but is wonderful to look upon and make up all sorts of plans with, about, or for.
I know it sounds crazy, but that is just the way it works! If this is not mine, then it is not mine to loose; if it belongs to God, then it is something that He blesses me with to be part of, but it is not my own! If you do not see the connection, then it is only because you do not want to; because this goes way beyond our personal life, this gets right to the heart of God's people, and into the heart of the church.
The easiest thing that I can attest to, is the thing I see within the church. So much of what goes wrong in our churches, is that there is a problem of ownership, where the church, any church, is turned into something that is no longer God's property, but it belongs to whomever else; be it the pastor, the elders, the overseeing church; it really does not matter, because once it no longer belongs to God, then it will consume whoever thinks that they own it.
We can see it also in the Law of Moses, as it is, with the secondary command for Eve, "Don't even touch it!" The command is now changed, added to, and made her own; their own, if we are speaking of the Jews. Not to get sidetracked, but what the heck is wrong with our Courts! We have somehow stopped being a country of laws and the rule of law, and we are turned into a place where everyone can do what is right in there own hearts! Guess why that is, if you can? From where do our laws come from? If not from God, then who? Take about a garden of nuts! My mom would have said of this: The inmates are running the asylum!
Anywho, this is something I believe is more than just my observation, this is something real and that many are careful to avoid talking about, mostly because it hits so very close to home. But isn't this why we do what we do...
"Since they thought is foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. They know God's justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too." (Romans 1:28-32) NLT
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