Now she determines to rise up. She realizes that she is not advancing in her faith and that her feeling is gone. The meaning of rising up is to no longer lie on the bed and rest. The Lord teaches her to transcend over a rest that depends on time and place. Previously, she treasured a rest that depended on time and place above everything else. But after the Lord has taken her a step further, she realizes that a rest that depends on time and place is not complete. Therefore, she wants to rise up and move away from this rest, and learn to experience the rest that is satisfied in every kind of circumstance.

After she arises, she wants to "go about the city." (Formerly, this city referred to Jerusalem. Now it refers to the heavenly Jerusalem and to everything that is heavenly.) She seeks Christ among all the heavenly things, matters, and people. Perhaps she has spent a considerable time studying many doctrines in the Bible. Perhaps she has read many books by others and has participated in many meetings with spiritual persons. Perhaps she has done all these, and perhaps she has even sought "in the streets, and in the broad ways." The "streets" are the ordinary roads, whereas "the broad ways" are the wide roads. These are the places where the citizens pass, the places of communication. These are the means where they receive grace. The Lord is "the way." In other words, these are the usual means by which God's people receive fellowship and grace. She has tried them all. These may include confession, repentance, prayer, fasting, meeting, and fellowship between the saints. They may even include faith and trust in Him. But she cannot find the Lord in these places. (In searching for sinners, we have to go to the "streets and lanes" as in Luke 14:21. But in the New Jerusalem, there are only streets. Before God there are no small lanes. The world always takes small lanes, but spiritually, this cannot be done.)

When the Lord purposely goes away and takes away man's feeling of His presence, it is difficult to recover it through man's ways of seeking. By now the maiden has learned at least one lesson: the Lord is not in the place of the bed. If she cannot find Him within, she has to look for Him without. If it is true that prayer is not for prayer, that Bible reading is not for Bible reading, and that a quiet time is not for a quiet time but for His presence, then to a certain point, prayer, Bible reading, and quiet time have to be relinquished before we can find His presence.

The maiden begins to leave her bed and to communicate with God's other children. She learns to take God's way. She no longer has coverings, and she does not care for her "face" any longer. She no longer tries to cover her inner emptiness with outward works. She learns to mingle herself with God's other children and to solve her spiritual problems in this way. Formerly, the only way to solve her spiritual problems was with the bed. Now she can walk through the city and search in the streets and the broad places. Although she has not met the Lord, He is inside the city. Although she has not met the Lord along the paths she travels, these journeys are indispensable for her. Soon she will meet the Lord; it is only a matter of time.

Verse 3 says, "The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?" The words "go about" can be translated as "parade." These watchmen are charged by God to watch over souls (Heb. 13:17). They go about the city; they are the ones who are familiar with spiritual things. Perhaps in the past, these ones rendered much help to the maiden. Although the maiden has not sought them, their duty puts them in a place where they see the maiden. The maiden thinks that perhaps these ones can tell her where her beloved is.