Bible Snack #124

The Beloved’s Request
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​The Shulamite

8 The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes Leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
9 My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, he stands behind our wall; he is looking through the windows, gazing through the lattice.
10 My beloved spoke, and said to me: “Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.
11 For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
13 The fig tree puts forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grapes give a good smell. Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away!
14 “O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely.” (Song of Solomon 2:8–14).
 
Desire. I remember my first love. Sixteen—both of us. We would meet halfway between our houses and run to be with one another. We didn’t do anything against God’s laws, but we used our words like these verses recommend.
 
Desire. Again, another gift from God. I wish I would have married that first love. The man I did marry used words to complain and condemn. I cannot find that usage of words anywhere in the Bible, and all they did for me was to drain desire out of me.
 
If we want to be like Jesus, we will behave like the Shulamite’s beloved: full of passion, full of poetry, full of a desire to win someone’s heart. You, my reader, have my heart, and I pray your life is filled with singing, pleasant aromas, sweetness, tenderness, loveliness.