REKINDLE: KEEPING FIRST LOVE ALIVE B Y L I N D S E Y S U L L I VA N
I
still remember those first days after I gave my heart to the Lord. A wide-eyed, hungry-hearted 16-yearold girl, I had never experienced a love like His before. The sweetness of Jesus had captured my heart, and I was forever changed. However, it took me a few years to grow into my newfound relationship with God. That burning passion and overwhelming desire to love Christ that I once knew soon faded into what felt like work and routine. To my disappointment, there is no full-proof 10-step program for building a relationship with an invisible God. As a result, I often found myself vacillating between intense seasons of devotion and days where I struggled to put Him first. As I came to discover, staying in love is not as easy as falling into it. The Word of God actually addresses this very dilemma in the Song of Songs. In this text, the Shulamite bride, representing God’s bride, His church (that’s us!), begins by praising her lover, the Bridegroom, who represents Christ. “Your love is better than wine,” she exclaims (SOS 1:2 ESV) and asks the Bridegroom to draw her away so they can be together. At this beautiful moment, she is falling deeply in love. And the Bridegroom is too! He responds to her, praising her beauty and proclaiming that she has ravished His heart with a single glance of her eyes. Oh, that we ravish the Lord’s heart when we look at Him and seek Him! But later in the text, when the Bridegroom comes knocking in her dream, the bride opens the door too late, missing her opportunity to be with Him. She mourns, crying, “I had put off my garment; how could I put it on? I had bathed my feet; how could I soil them?” (SOS 5:3 ESV) Haven’t we all been like the bride, washing our feet of our sin and giving our hearts to Jesus only to return to what the world offers as we forsake our first love? I know I have fallen into this trap countless times, and I always regret it. However, rather than continuing to mourn over her sin, the bride goes out to seek her beloved. She searches for Him restlessly and ends up being attacked by the city watchmen in the process. Yet she is determined to find Him and cries out, “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick with love.” (SOS 5:8 ESV) We can learn a lot from the Shulamite bride. First, we should continue to be lovesick for more of Jesus. And despite our mistakes of wandering, we can enthusiastically chase after our beloved. God wants us to throw off our shame and regret! So wipe your face and seek Him! He is the only thing worth seeking, after all.
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