In the natural world, seasons come and go in a perpetual cycle. No man finds himself asking, “What if this year, things are different? What if this time, the winter just…stays?”
Experience has taught us that if we simply wait it out, winter must give way to spring.
Marriage is different.
When the cold sets in between you and your wife, the last thing you should try is the passive approach. This winter won’t go if you try to wait it out. Instead, you need to get active.
You need the wisdom of the Song of Solomon.
When the cold sets in between you and your wife, the last thing you should try is the passive approach.
Clustered in the middle of the Bible are five books of what we call “Wisdom Literature”: Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon.
Job is for wisdom in suffering. Psalms is for wisdom in prayer. Proverbs gives wisdom for all kinds of life circumstances, and Ecclesiastes gives wisdom on finding meaning in life.
But when a man finds himself needing wisdom on love—romantic love, specifically—there is the Song of Solomon.
Like the book of Psalms, which is a collection of real prayers prayed by real people and given to guide us in our own prayer lives, the Song is a collection of love poems, written by real lovers, given to guide us in—you guessed it—our own love lives.
And as weird and foreign as it may seem at times, the Song is very practical. After all, it is a part of Scripture, and as the apostle tells us in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, and for training in righteousness.”
So what kind of teaching, what type of training can you expect when you turn to the Song of Solomon?
Answer: training by example.
To see what I mean, let’s say you find your marriage in the kind of situation outlined above in the opening. For whatever reason, you and your wife have grown distant recently.
There are as many possible solutions, but a great one is found in Song 2:10-13. Read through it slowly, and see if you can pick it out:
My Lover sang out to me:
“Get up, my Love, my beautiful one, and come away!
Look, the winter is past, and its rains over and gone!
Flowers have appeared over the earth,
The songbird’s season has come,
The voice of the turtledove is heard in our land,
The fig tree forms its early fruit,
And the grapevines their blossoms.
What smells they are giving!
Get up, my Love, my beautiful one, and come away!”
Here we have the lady in this duo tell us that her Lover “sang out” to her.
What did he sing?
“Get up, my Love, my beautiful one, and come away!”
Notice how the Lover speaks to his Lady, how he calls her to join him in his world. His message isn’t for her to leave him alone, but to come away with him.
His is a word of invitation, and he delivers it with an argument engineered just for her:
“Flowers have appeared over the earth.”
His message isn’t for her to leave him alone, but to come away with him.
These are words that would appeal particularly to his Lady. What this communicates is that her interests and joys have not been lost on him. It is clear that during his time away from her, she has still been on his mind.
How do we know this?
By his alertness to what delights her personally: flowers, songbirds, blossoming vines. The Lover has so taken his Lady into his heart that he views his world through the lens of her joys. In so doing, he has become equipped to speak persuasively to her.
What is the lesson for men today?
Move into your work-world with alertness. Be on the lookout for things that would delight your own Lady. Actively acquaint yourself with her preferences, so that as her Lover, you may know how to invite her.
Hold her in your heart as you go away for the day. Look at your surroundings through the lens of her delights. Find places to take her. Make a note of items and events which might be of interest to her. It could be as grand as opening night at the ballet, or as small and intimate as a place for a picnic. Invite her to join you in this world you’ve discovered. Summon her into the warm spring of hope.
Sometimes the winter rains can chill our marriage gardens. The Lover in the Song speaks of a new time, a spring time. Get up, he says, Look! The winter is past, and its rains, over and gone!
In the natural world, winter is expected, along with its departure. But when the cold sets in on a marriage, it may never thaw, unless someone does something.
This is up to us, husbands. Do something! As the LORD said to Job, “Gird up your loins like a man” (Job 38:3), which is to say, get active, as is fitting to your God-given masculinity.
If your marriage has been in a season of chill, then put on the life-giving warmth of the Lover. Give your Lady hope. Show that you are thinking of her, and invite her into some new experience. Grab her hand and go for a walk. Make some new memories.
Banish the winter by taking the initiative.
As it turns out, the call of the Lover in the Song finds an echo in Ephesians 5:14:
“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
Just as the Lover in the Song is a picture of God’s vision for husbands, so every man who embraces that vision is a picture of God’s Son. He is the ultimate Spring-bringer—never passive, always active, who took the initiative to banish winter for good.
Now…what else might you pick up from studying the Song?
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