Your First Love

Song of Solomon 1:2-17

Young Woman

2 Kiss me and kiss me again,
for your love is sweeter than wine.
3 How fragrant your cologne;
your name is like its spreading fragrance.
No wonder all the young women love you!
4 Take me with you; come, let’s run!
The king has brought me into his bedroom.

How happy we are for you, O king.
We praise your love even more than wine.
How right they are to adore you.

5 I am dark but beautiful,
O women of Jerusalem—
dark as the tents of Kedar,
dark as the curtains of Solomon’s tents.
6 Don’t stare at me because I am dark—
the sun has darkened my skin.
My brothers were angry with me;
they forced me to care for their vineyards,
so I couldn’t care for myself—my own vineyard.

7 Tell me, my love, where are you leading your flock today?
Where will you rest your sheep at noon?
For why should I wander like a prostitute
among your friends and their flocks?

Young Man

8 If you don’t know, O most beautiful woman,
follow the trail of my flock,
and graze your young goats by the shepherds’ tents.
9 You are as exciting, my darling,
as a mare among Pharaoh’s stallions.
10 How lovely are your cheeks;
your earrings set them afire!
How lovely is your neck,
enhanced by a string of jewels.
11 We will make for you earrings of gold
and beads of silver.

Young Woman

12 The king is lying on his couch,
enchanted by the fragrance of my perfume.
13 My lover is like a sachet of myrrh
lying between my breasts.
14 He is like a bouquet of sweet henna blossoms
from the vineyards of En-gedi.

Young Man

15 How beautiful you are, my darling,
how beautiful!
Your eyes are like doves.

Young Woman

16 You are so handsome, my love,
pleasing beyond words!
The soft grass is our bed;
17 fragrant cedar branches are the beams of our house,
and pleasant smelling firs are the rafters.

It is often said that when young love is over so is the honeymoon. Many people who have been married for any length of time don't often refer to their insatiable love for their spouse as the secret to their success. Most men will talk about learning the two hardest words to say to make their wife happy as the key to their success. Those words would be "Yes dear". I think those would be closely followed by "I'm sorry". Women would most often point to their communication style with their husband as the key to their success. I can see why they would say that if all they heard from their husband was "I'm sorry" or "Yes dear" how they would see that their communication style was the key.

I think for myself and the 13 plus years of marriage that I have had the priviledge of being is that my wife has learned that what ever goes wrong in some way is her fault. JUST KIDDING! I am married to the best woman in the world. Our marriage has actually gotten stronger over the past six years than it ever was the previous seven years leading up to it. I attribute that to my taking my rightful place as the spiritual head of our household as well as the financial head of our household. For many years leading up to our purchasing a business in 2003 was one that was characterized as a financial mouse. My wife was in sales and was very good at it. When you are good at sales you tend to make a lot of money. She typically made two to three times what I made, which left me with the freedom to do any type of job I wanted because I liked doing what I was doing. It wasn't healthy for us because it also put me in a position to be lax on my duties as the spiritual head as well. I tried to be but wasn't secure enough in myself to fully take those reigns. She wasn't dominating in that area but we probable heald the reigns together most of the time.

Working together for the last six years has been the best thing for us, our family and most importantly our marriage. We get to have conversations all throughout the day that most couples have to schedule a date night to get the opportunity to just begin them. We have developed our system that works best for us to talk about all the issues facing our businesses, family, school for the kids, etc. because we are with each other all day every day. Unlike most couples who try to get time together when they can we often find ourselves looking for those opportunities to spend time with others or just by ourselves. We really enjoy it.

Looking at today's verses really reminded me of a very young couple who are "deeply" in love, as they would tell you. They can't stop thinking about each other and talk about the other person all the time to their friends until it bores them out of their minds. How interesting would it be if all of a sudden a couple who had been married for 50 years was talking like this to their spouse or about their spouse? I think if I could talk like that about my wife and she could like that about me we would be on the cover of a marriage magazine being touted as the perfect model of a successful marriage. This analogy of how one behaves when they are newly "in love" is also discussed in the New Testatment.

1 John 4:7-19

7 Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. 8 But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

9 God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. 10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.

11 Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. 12 No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.

13 And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. 14 Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.

God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect. So we will not be afraid on the day of judgment, but we can face him with confidence because we live like Jesus here in this world.

18 Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love. 19 We love each other because he loved us first.

As we see how this finishes up here by telling us that because God loved us first we are able to then love each other. God loves us with a greater intensity than even what we experience with new love. Here is an admonition also found in the New Testament.

Revelation 2:1-7

“Write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands:

2 “I know all the things you do. I have seen your hard work and your patient endurance. I know you don’t tolerate evil people. You have examined the claims of those who say they are apostles but are not. You have discovered they are liars. 3 You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.

4 “But I have this complaint against you. You don’t love me or each other as you did at first! 5 Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. 6 But this is in your favor: You hate the evil deeds of the Nicolaitans, just as I do.

7 “Anyone with ears to hear must listen to the Spirit and understand what he is saying to the churches. To everyone who is victorious I will give fruit from the tree of life in the paradise of God.

What Jesus is telling the church here is that they have been working hard and have been patient in their enduring hard times. Most marriages I think get caught in this cycle of working hard, enduring hard times, but they do not love their spouse with the same intensity as they did when they were first "in love". This love that Jesus is talking about here is the level of love that we are, not only to have for Him, but also for our spouses. If we do not develop that level of love for our spouse then we too would be guilty of losing our first love we had for them. If we can maintain that level of love for them over a long period of time we would have many more successful marriages and fewer and fewer divorces, especially in the body of Christ.

Heavenly Father I thank You today for giving me my wife. I am truly grateful for her and can't believe how blessed I am to have her. I ask for Your love for her to be revealed to me so I can develop and even deeper love and respect for her that I cannot produce on my own. Work through me to reveal Your love for her so that our marriage will be stronger and more like the love Jesus has for His Bride, the church. Amen.

Published by Erik L. Vakula
Daily Bread From the Word
Copyright © 2009 Erik Vakula, All Rights Reserved