FROM APPRECIATION TO ENJOYMENT
After the seeking one became a lily, she began to enjoy the Lord. At first, she appreciated the Lord as a bundle of myrrh and as a cluster of henna flowers, but at that time she had not yet begun to enjoy the Lord. The enjoyment began after she was transformed into a lily. After becoming a lily, she started to enjoy the Lord’s fruit, which was sweet to her taste. Then, she not only appreciated the Lord, but also enjoyed the Lord by eating of His fruit. After this, she was brought into the banqueting house, the house of wine, to have a further enjoyment of eating and drinking the Lord. Before that time, she only had a kind of appreciation of the Lord. The riches of the Lord had not yet been deposited into her. But when she started to enjoy the Lord, she began to take something of the Lord into her. By eating and drinking of the Lord, some of the elements of the Lord were wrought into her. Hence, by eating, drinking, and enjoying the Lord, the third step of transformation was wrought into the seeking one. She became a dove. A dove in the Bible signifies the Holy Spirit. As a dove, she lived as the Spirit, behaved as the Spirit, and had the appearance of the Spirit. As a dove, she became the expression of the Spirit. It was not only by appreciating the Lord, but by taking the Lord Himself into her in a way of enjoyment that some of the Lord’s very element entered into her and caused her to be transformed substantially. She was no longer a company of horses or a lily, but a dove, the expression of the life-giving Spirit.
PARTICIPATING IN THE LORD’S DEATH AND RESURRECTION
All of her transformation was due to her appreciation and enjoyment of the Lord through the experiences of the Lord’s death and resurrection. Many figures, such as the myrrh, the clefts of the rock, and the secret of the steep places are pictures of the Lord’s death and resurrection. While she was appreciating and enjoying the Lord, she experienced the Lord’s death and resurrection. We cannot partake of the Lord Himself without participating in His death and resurrection, because these are elements of His very being. If we enjoy Him, surely we will participate in His death and resurrection. The more we partake of the Lord, the more we take His death into us. The more we enjoy Him, the more we take in His resurrection.
The Lord today is just like an all-inclusive dose. In such a dose are all the ingredients and elements that are needed. There are the killing elements, and there are the nourishing elements. The Lord’s death is the killing element, and His resurrection is the nourishing element. When we enjoy the Lord, we enjoy all the ingredients of such an all-inclusive One. The more we take the Lord in, the more the killing elements get into us. At the same time, we also obtain the nourishing elements of His resurrection. Hallelujah! As the Lord’s element gets into us, He kills all the negative items and nourishes us with all of the positive elements. This results in transformation. The horse’s eyes were changed into doves’ eyes, and even the company of horses was changed into a lily. Then, the lily was transformed into a dove, and she stayed in the cleft of the rock and in the secret of the steep places. She stayed in the Lord’s death, resurrection, and ascension.
(Life and Building as Portrayed in the Song of Songs, Chapter 11, by Witness Lee)
