Song of Solomon Chapter 5
It Starts With Christ!
The woman is asleep and is woken by her lover knocking on her door. When she finally gets to the door to open it, he has already left. Her heart sank because of his departure. She looked for him. She called for him. The watchmen of the walls found her in the night, then beat and bruised her, and took her cloak. She instructed her friends that if they found him to tell him his bride is faint in love. For whatever reason, her friends asked her how her lover is better than the other men. She replied in pointing out many of his features that were attractive to her.
I would like to give two challenges:
1. What were the positive qualities of your lover at the start of your relationship compared to now? How have they changed or stayed the same? More importantly: what priority do you have in making Christ the center of your relationship? That needs to be the number one feature of both of you. Have a conversation with one another and ask, “What can we do better to make Christ the center of our relationship?” How’s your church life together, your prayer life together, your Scripture reflection together, your willingness to spend time together. Look at the qualities of one another and see how you can use your qualities for the Lord in the church, and outside the church. Encourage one another in these areas.
2. What quality time do you have together? Do you still have good ole date nights? If not, may I challenge you to incorporate into your relationship a regular date night. I know schedules are busy, but take some risks or make some sacrifices and plan a date night once a week or once every two weeks. Plan it. Stick to it. Make it a priority just like in the good ole days.
One of my friends shared that he and his wife are seeing a marriage mentor and their challenge for the week was to write Love Letters to each other throughout the week. I thought that was awesome.
If you’re marriage is not moving in the right direction, then doing what you have been doing is not going to produce change. Be creative, Google ideas, steel ideas, but do something different. Have a conversation with one another and pray Christ helps you implement ideas to draw you closer together and closer to Christ versus further apart. The closer you get to Christ, then the closer you get to one another.
