February 8, 2015: Wake Up – Jon Gettings

“Do not awaken love until it so desires.” Though this verse seems at first glance to be primarily emotional and cerebral, it is also explicitly carnal. Due to the way we have surrounded the topic of sexuality in the church with an unhealthy layer of fear, verses like this get commonly read as warnings. Warnings of impending judgment by God, or impending doom of a relationship if the timing of our emotional, physical sexual activity isn’t in “God’s timeline”, however that timeline has been framed for us. 

 

However, this woman is not a woman speaking from a place of despair for wrongs done. She is a woman speaking from a place of: first, joy and longing (2:7); second, joy and relief or arousal (3:5); and third, joy and fulfillment (8:4). This is a matter of fact statement or declaration about the power of the reality she is caught up in. 

Love is desire that is fulfillment and was also meant to reach deep fulfillment. When we begin on the trajectory of love’s desire its goal is consume us and fulfill us body and soul, and the Beloved speaks about the powerful ways that it moves. How do we embrace love and fulfillment with intentionality as we pursue God and our relationships with others?