June 26, 2024 - Song of Solomon 4-8

Back and forth the lovers go.  When they are apart, how they miss one another!  They recall each other with the fondest and most exciting thoughts.  Hear the one as she intimately describes her companion:  “My beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among ten thousand. . . . His head . . . His eyes . . . His cheeks . . . His arms . . . His legs . . . His mouth is most sweet, and he is altogether desirable.  This is my beloved and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem” (5:10-16).  The song ends with Solomon’s lover entreating him, “Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices” (8:14).  Here is a deep, deep love.  Not a day goes by that the two do not think of each other and, when apart, long to be with one another.  Seemingly, their every thought is about the other.

One of the truest tests of our salvation is a deep longing to be with Jesus.  Even in the Old Testament, we read the words of the sons of Korah:  “As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:1-2).  And David:  “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water” (Psalm 63:1).  That’s just the way it is with God’s people, isn’t it?

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold

I’d rather be His than have riches untold

I’d rather have Jesus than houses or land

I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand.

Than to be the king of a vast domain

And be held in sin’s dread sway

I’d rather have Jesus than anything

This world affords today.   -- Rhea F. Miller (1922)