The Song of Solomon 7

There are times when we might want to examine someone very carefully if no one else could know that we were doing so. We are normally embarrassed to have detailed physical and emotional interest in another person. It seems inappropriate, and it may be unappreciated. Perhaps that is our fear. If the one I secretly love saw me looking at her too closely, would she be pleased, or would she find it disturbing? Would I lose my chance to be close with someone, because I revealed my desire for her in a way that seemed to be too much?

The lover of this poem is very bold indeed. In chapter seven he starts with his woman's toes and is not finished until he moves inch by inch to the locks of her hair. His eyes see everything, and he loves what he sees. He is not embarrassed about his desire to know her and to talk to her about his love for her body. Her feet, her thighs, her navel, her belly, her breasts, her neck, her eyes and nose, her hair are all worthy of carefully chosen and imaginative words of appreciation. Though he is a powerful and confident man, he freely admits that she has taken him captive!

She is a sensuous tree that he wants to climb. He will speak of taking her and touching her until his mouth will meet hers in a passionate and full way. She is ready to surrender to him. She will not deny him, but invites him to the wonderful place that she has prepared for him. There she will soon give him her love. This place is more than just a body. She speaks of a whole glorious creation of fields and villages, vineyards and fruit. She knows that his desire is for her, and in that best place of her dreams she will give him all that she has. This is what she has prepared for, and this is her willing heart.

Oh if every man who so desires could have such a willing, creative, and adventurous woman! Oh if every woman who is called to be thus loved could have a man who would extol all of her in a way that would last! God is the one who has given us each other. May we enjoy each other as those who know the life that comes from His grace. May we see His plan for us as good, and rejoice in the wife of our youth. May we have special places where we will freely and gladly give ourselves to the lover of our dreams.

Has God given us the capacity to have such vivid and wholesome delights of the mind without any intention of bringing about the greatest physical fulfillment of these holy words? Is the place of our promised eternal bliss to be somehow less physically appealing than the pleasures of this present physical world? God tells us most definitely that He is love, and that He loves us. He tells us to cleave to Him in love, and tells us that the relationship of Christ and His Church is that of a perfect and powerful husband and a holy and beautiful bride. He tells us that a day is coming when we will be together forever in place of abounding fruitfulness and joy. Brothers and sisters, believe and wait for that day. It is surely coming. Do not despair. Jesus knows your grief. He was himself the Man of Sorrows. But He was wounded for our transgressions, and our healing has been most definitively secured in His death and resurrection. Live in hope. Believe in the better day that will come in the twinkling of an eye.