But she finds to her surprise that the inner feelings of His presence leave when the Lord retreats outwardly. The Lord has not left her, but in her feelings He has indeed left her. The Lord's way of training her is to take away her inner feelings of His presence when she cannot carry this presence to the environment in the world. We do not know how long a period, such as the one described in 2:17, can last. But if we cannot secure Christ's presence in the environment, we cannot secure His presence in our feeling. If we cannot secure Christ's presence by faith, we cannot have His presence by our feeling. Many Christians do not understand why they lose their feelings of the intimate presence of the Lord after they have enjoyed it for a while, and they do not understand why they cannot recover such feelings. When the Lord cannot gain what He wants, you cannot gain what you want either. If you do not receive His new grace, you will find that your old grace is lost. You may think that you are living in 1:13. Actually, you have drifted into the experience of 3:1. (Both 1:13 and 3:1 use the word "night.") She thinks that she can embrace the Lord between her breasts all night long, just like she did before. Little does she realize that the Lord has left in the night. Because she treasures the Lord's presence in her feelings, she would rather hide behind the walls to keep the feelings. She would rather not go to the world, and she would rather let the Lord take care of His own work and interest. She would allow her union with the Lord to slip and become incomplete, and she would allow Him to act apart from her. The Lord takes away her cherished feelings so that she will lose her feelings of His presence (though not in fact). This is for the purpose of drawing her to seek after the Lord in outward things. This is the first time the maiden is attracted to turn outward.

Verse 3:1 says, "By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not." The word "night" should be "nights." In 1:13, "night" is singular. "Nights" here refers to a few nights in a row. The beloved seems to have hidden himself. This is something unexpected for her. The purpose of the Lord is to utilize her desire for fellowship in her feeling to attract her so that she would gain what she should gain. Because she has lost the feeling of His presence, she thinks that she has lost the Lord. She does not yet have the knowledge or the experience. Hence, she is foolish; she does not understand the Lord's intention. She seeks for the One whom her soul loves (verses 1 through 3 use this expression three times). She thinks that she is seeking for Him. She does not realize that she is actually seeking for the feeling of His presence. Her seeking is genuine, but she does not realize that the object which she seeks and fails to find is not the real thing.

Verse 2 says, "I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not." The rising up in Luke 15 is toward the Father, whereas the rising up here is toward the Son. The seeking in Song of Songs 3:1 is a seeking on the bed. This means that she has not left her own position. Her position is still wrong.

The first step toward a knowledge of the Lord is a knowledge of the cross. We have not covered this aspect in this book yet. After taking the first step in knowing Him, we have Christ in our heart, which is the fellowship in our feeling, the experience of the chambers and the house of wine. Then we have to go on to know a Christ who is not bound by the environment. The maiden has taken both the first and the second step, but she has not taken the third step. Her bed, the place where she rests, is the problem. The Lord disturbs her rest. Those who have not passed through the experience of "our bed is green. The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir" need to be led by the Lord to experience this rest. But those who have had this experience should be led further to leap upon the mountains and skip upon the hills with the Lord. The Lord calls the maiden out of the bed that she rests in, and He makes it clear to her that His presence is no longer there.