The Wisdom of Love: The Searching Heart

When we approach the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs it is important to remember a couple of things...

Sex is God inspired

Satan has attempted to steal sex and turn it into something taboo

Sexual intimacy is healthy and necessary within the context of marriage

Song of Solomon is a collection of poems written between a man and a woman. They care deeply about each other and long to be together. Throughout the first couple chapters we find the woman searching for her man desperate to find him and be with him. It shows us our need for intimacy and the power that love can have over a person.

Our hearts search for intimacy

Emotional Intimacy: An intimacy built through emotional connections. Sharing a secret with someone you trust, expressing a frustration, expressing an insecurity. Not sexual in nature but conveys a sense of belonging and community.

Physical Intimacy: An intimacy built through physical connections. A mother holding her child, two friends giving high fives, a brother giving his sister a hug. Not sexual in nature but conveys a sense of protection and safety.

Sexual Intimacy: An intimacy designed for the confines of marriage. Used as a tool to enhance emotional and physical intimacy. It brings honor and glory to God by taking what were once two people and uniting them into one.

Sexual immorality: A false intimacy. Sin disguises itself as emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy. Seeks to corrupt emotional and physical intimacy by introducing sexual intimacy too soon or in a way that is inappropriate.

Our hearts search for satisfaction

Satan has deceived our hearts telling us we can be satisfied with sexual immorality but it is an empty promise.

Jeremiah 17:9 CSB

9 The heart is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable—who can understand it?

Romans 13:14 CSB

14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

1 Thessalonians 4:3–8 CSB

3 For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you keep away from sexual immorality, 4 that each of you knows how to control his own body in holiness and honor, 5 not with lustful passions, like the Gentiles, who don’t know God. 6 This means one must not transgress against and take advantage of a brother or sister in this manner, because the Lord is an avenger of all these offenses, as we also previously told and warned you. 7 For God has not called us to impurity but to live in holiness. 8 Consequently, anyone who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who gives you his Holy Spirit.

How can our searching heart find satisfaction?

We find it in Jesus

“You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in You.” -Augustine

It sounds cliche but when you look at marriage and what a marriage should look Paul tells us in Ephesians 5 that it should look like Jesus. Wives are told to serve their husbands as the church serves Christ who is the head of the church and likewise husbands are called to love their wives as Jesus loved the church and gave His life for her. There is no greater example of love or a partner than Jesus Christ. He is the example. So as your heart searches for a partner don’t forget that your heart is also designed for intimacy with your creator.

Spiritual Intimacy: An intimacy built on the transformative work of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. It is purchased in justification, manifested through sanctification, and sealed by the Holy Spirit. It is an intimacy that expels sexual immorality and protects the other intimacies from perversion. It sees all people, not as objects to be used, but as creatures made in the divine image of God.

It is crucial that as you search for your partner you do so as you are pursuing Christ. When you follow God’s voice and are obedient to His will many times you will find that the person you need is also walking that same road. When the two meet they find they are united in purpose and motivation. Both are focused on honoring God and following Him. The temptation we often face is to take someone who is going a different direction, someone that doesn’t have a relationship with Christ, and we try to drag them along the path with us. But more often than not what happens is we begin to follow them rather than Christ or we begin to wander away and flounder. When you search for a partner look for someone that will not just grow in your emotional and physical intimacy but will also make it a priority to help you grow in your spiritual intimacy.

Love can be intoxicating. Do not awaken love before its time

Song of Solomon 1:1-4a

Love is public

Song of Solomon 1:4b

Love is honest

Song of Solomon 1:5-7

Love builds up, not with false flattery or seeking to objectify, but with genuine affection

Song of Solomon 1:8-15

Love is valuable

Song of Solomon 1:12-14

Love is built on a firm foundation and grows stronger with every day

Song of Solomon 1:16-17

Love is exclusive

Song of Solomon 2:1-3

Love is an Oasis . Do not awaken love before its time

Song of Solomon 2:4-7

Love comes in good time

Song of Solomon 2:8-13

Love is a refuge

Song of Solomon 2:14

Love is protective

Song of Solomon 2:15

Love lasts through the pain of night

Song of Solomon 2:16-17

Love is painful when lost. Do not awaken love before its time

Song of Solomon 3:1-5

Why is it so necessary that we not awaken love before its time?

Love takes Wisdom and Maturity

Love is not something that a person should rush into. Marriage is a covenant between a man and woman before God that is designed to last until death. It is important to take caution and not rush into something your heart is not ready to handle. Marriage is hard. It is costly. It requires hard work and dedication. It takes intentionality. Love isn’t a feeling but an action. Feelings pass away feelings change but choosing to love is a decision made daily. The woman in Song of Solomon tells us not to awaken love before it is time because it is not something easily contained. Loving someone can be painful. It takes great maturity to forgive someone that hurts you, to move towards reconciliation, and keep on loving. The cost of love is high so consider the cost before awakening it.

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” -C.S. Lewis