[10] How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride!
How much better is your love than wine,
and the fragrance of your oils than any spice!
[11] Your lips drip nectar, my bride;
honey and milk are under your tongue;
the fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon.
(Song of Solomon 4:10 ESV)
Solomon praises his bride not just for her physical beauty, but also for the beauty of her love. He treasures how she loves him, praising her act of love as more intoxicating than wine.
In the initial stages of attraction, the attributes of a person draw you in -- their character, their personality, their goals in life, their smile, their laughter, their charm. Much of the fun of the first few dates is discovering these things in the other person, and revealing your attributes to them. While it's true that you'll keep discovering each other over the entire course of your relationship, it's equally true that the greatest concentration of discovery is had in these first few dates, whether they be casual pre-relationship dates, or the first few dates as a couple.
After that initial phase of discovery, if the relationship is going to last, you're going to have to love each other well. I don't mean that you fall head-over-heels on the fifth date and profess your undying devotion to them; that will probably scare the other person away. I'm not talking about love as an emotion, as a flutter of the heart. That is beautiful and necessar, but right here, I mean to talk about love as a verb.
The process of loving a person long-term has less to do with emotion and much to do with action. Emotions are certainly part of the equation, but emotions are given to us as individuals. We enjoy our emotions as an individual; we can't communicate them directly to others. The emotions we feel have very little impact on whether or not our partner feels loved.
This might sound a bit odd, so allow me to illustrate. Suppose a wife has a busy day of running all over town, and she asks her husband to clean up the house, because it's a mess and she's having company over later. If she gets back at the end of her errands and finds her husband has done nothing, she won't feel loved. It won't help if he says that he spent the time enjoying his feelings of love for her. He may indeed be enjoying romantic feelings for her, but she is feeling none of it, because he hasn't acted on his love.
Conversely, suppose that this husband did clean up the entire house, and even went to the store and put a vase of fresh roses on the kitchen table. When his wife comes home and finds a clean home, as well as her favorite type of roses, she will feel loved. The emotions of love and romance will bubble up within her, even if it's been a stressful day. Her husband's emotions didn't cause this reaction in her. His actions did.
If we want to communicate emotion to another person, we must act. Love is a verb -- it is communicated by the actions we do and the words we say, not by the emotions we feel. If we want to inspire romantic feelings in someone else, we have to act (ask them out, give them flowers, clean the house, etc.) or we have to speak (tell them how we feel, ask questions to probe their heart, get to know them through long conversation, etc.).
Solomon's bride has done this extremely well. She has communicated her love for him through a long series of actions and words, many of which we've already witnessed in the earlier chapters of this book. It is this work, these actions and words, that have captivated Solomon for the long-term, so much so that he is delighted to pledge his life to her.
The things that attract us initially are delightful, but the thrill of attraction must be followed up by the substance of loving through actions and words if a relationship is to be healthy. Solomon includes this in his praise of her. Her body is beautiful and captivates his eyes; he spends verses 1-8 praising her specifically. Her lips captivate his lips; he praises the delight of kissing her in verse 11. Her fragrance captivates his sense of smell; he praises her unique scent in verse 10. He even praises her jewelry and the glint in her eyes. Yet the substance of his continued attraction, the heart of his love, is the fact that she has loved him well. All of these other things -- her appearance, her smell, her lips, her jewelry -- are beautiful to him because she has spent so much time loving him well. I guarantee you that if he did not feel well loved by her, he would have no special place in his heart for her smell or her jewels.
If you want to sustain any romantic relationship, you must love well. Regardless of whether you're sustaining a dating relationship to the altar or a marriage to the next decade, you must focus on connecting with the heart of your beloved, of doing the things that make them feel loved, of speaking the words that quicken the beats of their heart. I won't give specific acts to do here, because each person is different; some girls love flowers while others are allergic. Find out what makes the heart of your beloved tick and love them well with that knowledge.
Single people, this message is for us. For married couples, the message is obvious; figure out what makes your spouse feel loved and do those things. (For hints, see the post on Love Languages a few months back).
But us single people probably won't immediately see the application of this passage to us. After all, we're not in a relationship; how can we work on loving someone well?
For starters, we need to re-learn what love is. Psychology, our current American culture is re-wiring us to crave immediate pleasures. Whether it's something obviously problematic like porn, which promises immediate sexual feelings, or something as seemingly innocent as fast food, we are being re-programmed to expect the things we want to arrive as quickly as possible.
The problem is that romance is not quick. It takes a lot of time for a guy and a girl to get to know each other, to peel back the layers and discover their history, to see how they react in a variety of situations, to build up trust, to connect mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. To love someone well, you must put selfishness aside and focus on them, seeking to serve them before expecting that you yourself be served. This is part of what the Bible means when it says that we are to love our spouses as Christ loved us (Eph 5:25). Jesus sought to serve His Bride, the Church, by dying for her on the Cross long before she ever asked for it. His Bride could never deserve this gift, but Jesus sought to serve out of love, so He loved her inspite of her faults.
So when we are single, we must not succumb to the culture that tells us to focus on us and our own desires, that we shouldn't have to wait for what we want, and that we can complain if we aren't served as we would like. It may not seem like it on the surface, but the reaction you have when you have to wait a long time for fast food tells a lot about how good of a lover you will be. Will you be selfish and demand that you be served as fast as possible, or will you be a servant and possibly let the person behind you go first? Will you complain because you weren't served as the king you believe yourself to be, or will you be understanding and realize how stressed the workers behind the counter are?
As single people, we must cultivate hearts that are ready to love well. The beautiful thing is that we don't have to wait for romance to work on this.
There are people all around us whom we can love. Go out of your way to serve your friends, your neighbors, your family (especially the family members you don't like so much), and even strangers. Figure out what makes these people feel loved and do that. Some needs are obvious; if you see a person struggling to carry a couch into a new apartment, help them out! If you see a person sitting alone and looking wistful, go sit down next to them and keep them company. Some needs are less obvious, but can be even more appreciated; those who claim to be okay when they're really not tend to be marvellously appreciative when someone takes the time to look beneath the venier and reach out to their hurting hearts.
This kind of love isn't romantic, but it is preparing the ground for romance. If you focus on loving well in all these other areas of life, it will be the easiest thing in the world to love your romantic partner well, because you're already used to doing the hard work of being a servant lover.
If, on the other hand, you focus on pleasing your own selfish desires above serving others, you will carry that attitude into your romantic relationships. As should be obvious, this will damage these relationships, often beyond repair. It's hard to sustain romance when you're so used to being selfish, when you're focused primarily on yourself. It's easy to focus on the other person in the initial stages of attraction, but once you settle into the habits of a long-term relationship, your selfish tendency will rear its ugly head.
So single people, if you want a marriage night like the one Solomon and his bride are currently enjoying, you need to take your time right now to love other people well. Yes, it will probably mean less time playing video games. But it will also mean a happier, richer life for you and all those around you.
By the way, did you know that other singles happen to find happy, self-sacrificing, loving people to be extraordinarily attractive?
