Series: When God Isn’t There Week 5: Sick with Love
What it looks like to be sick with love is modeled for us in the Song of Solomon. This is a story of the relationship between man & God.
Song of Solomon 1:15-16. The king throws a party for his love.
Song of Solomon 2:4-5. She is ill with love. Presence creates a pain that only more presence can heal.
Song of Solomon 3:1. She has concluded the king can’t be found.
We can’t be too hasty in our assertion that God is absent, nor too quick to abandon the search for our absent God.
But, as the wedding ends, the bride awakens to another episode of absence. Song of Solomon 5:2-6. She is eager for presence. Song of Solomon 5:4. He is absent. She describes her pain: Song of Solomon 5:6.
When God is no longer felt where we once easily found Him, we can be sick with love. But, we must not let lovesickness lead us to desperation but to pursuit. Feeling far from God is not always the punishment of a relationship severed; it could be the evidence of a relationship formed.
Song of Solomon shows us that God’s absence is more pursuit than abandonment.
When something goes missing, we look for it. She is looking everywhere. Song of Solomon 5:7-8. Presence lost creates a longing greater than presence had.
Why does God seem to be so far off just after we have drawn nearer to Him than ever before? Because absence breeds desire.
The absence of God is not suspension, but seduction. Absence leads to searching.
Absence made her search. The absence of God puts us on a search for God.
2 key components of a search that don’t fit with a healthy understanding of our search for God: duration & direction.
God is too vast to be found. He is not waiting to be discovered under some faraway rock. Even when someone finds God, it isn’t as if anyone could know Him exhaustively. God is infinite, so the search is never ending. God can be found truly, though we will never be finished finding Him fully.
People could search all their lives, but if God does not reveal Himself to them, He will never be found.
Our search is the necessary response to the God who is drawing us to Himself. It isn’t we who find God, but God who made Himself found in us.
God is always present, but ever absent. We search for the One who can always be found in order to find the One who will always be hidden. When we find God, our appetite for His presence is not satisfied, but aroused. DEUTERONOMY 4:29.
During the woman’s search, she came upon others whom she asks for help. Instead of helping, they question her: Song of Solomon 5:9. She recounts her beloved’s presence in the midst of his absence. She takes this opportunity of absence to give testimony to the radiance of the king’s presence.
The woman makes a final request of her beloved to help her get through these times of distance. Song of Solomon 8:6a. 2 CORINTHIANS 1:21-22.
The love story wraps up with the woman’s description of love’s ferocity within her. Song of Solomon 8:6b-7.
When absence becomes overwhelming, remember that we have a love that is stronger than death—the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Song of Solomon 8:14. Confidence in absence does not override desire for presence.
God withdraws to lead us deeper into Himself because He loves us, & by that same love He will return.
