Tag: The Mingling Of Souls

‘Oh, I wish you were my brother, who nursed at my mother’s breasts. Then I could kiss you no matter who was watching, and no one would criticize me. I would bring you to my childhood home, and there you would teach me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, my sweet pomegranate wine. Your left arm would be under my head, and your right arm would embrace me.’ Song of Songs 8:1-3(NLT)

One of the things we see in our aged couple, despite all their history together and familiarity with each other, is that they still pursued one another. Looking over these few verses, we see things like the following: I find you, I kiss you, I lead you, I bring you.

Whenever you see an elderly couple out at the park or in a restaurant together, and they’re tender with each other, holding hands or talking sweetly, aren’t you moved by that? Maybe he opens the door for her or helps her out of the car. Maybe she wipes food off his chin or helps him order because he can’t see or hear very well. They are affectionate with each other in a sweet way, so that you see how in sync they are, how the rhythms of their life have led to this great romantic togetherness in their old age. That’s very moving.

The human soul is a deep thing, and in different seasons the heart will manifest in different ways.

Regardless of our life stage, regardless of where we are in our marriage, there’s still a pursuit. Don’t let your mind in this moment drift to autopilot. Don’t think, “Well, I’ll worry about that when I’m in my eighties.”

No, this is how you get to your eighties. This is how you invest in that beautiful future. Keep pursuing. Don’t stop.Continue to pursue your spouse’s heart.

Continue to press the gospel into his or her spirit. Continue to want more.

When you get there, you may be ready for retirement from so many things, but you should never retire from romancing your spouse. Don’t work toward the day to quit. Work toward the day you die.

This is how true longevity occurs. We will never arrive at a place where we can say, “I know you now,” because it simply wouldn’t be true. Each day we are called to know and pursue our spouse more deeply.

* Are you committed to keeping that fire burning? Have you ever succumbed to the temptation to just cruise for a while? How did that turn out? How can you ensure you don’t fall for that temptation again?

from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler

‘I slept, but my heart was awake, when I heard my lover knocking and calling: “Open to me, my treasure, my darling, my dove, my perfect one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night.” But I responded, “I have taken off my robe. Should I get dressed again? I have washed my feet. Should I get them soiled?” My lover tried to unlatch the door, and my heart thrilled within me. I jumped up to open the door for my love, and my hands dripped with perfume. My fingers dripped with lovely myrrh as I pulled back the bolt. I opened to my lover, but he was gone! My heart sank. I searched for him but could not find him anywhere. I called to him, but there was no reply. The night watchmen found me as they made their rounds. They beat and bruised me and stripped off my veil, those watchmen on the walls. Make this promise, O women of Jerusalem— If you find my lover, tell him I am weak with love.’ Song of Songs 5:2-8(NLT)

The Scriptures show husbands that they’ve been called by God to love their wives like Christ loved the church. That means we love them regardless of their response to our efforts to change them. And the same grace-centeredness is needed for the wives who want their husbands to change.

Getting our hearts into this way of thinking is the hardest thing in marriage by far because all of us tend to love in order to get something in return. (You can tell when it’s not really love you’re giving if you begin to withhold it because you don’t think the response is good enough.) Jesus calls us to a more selfless way, the way of the cross. His way calls us to love purely because it’s the right thing to do, because it honors him and glorifies his Father. Jesus emptied himself in order to love imperfect responders. That’s real love.

Men, have you figured out that you cannot be romantic enough… sweet enough… help around the house enough? You cannot make enough money and buy enough stuff to make your wife a sexual dynamo in the bedroom. Heart change isn’t brought about through leverage like that. In the end, only the Holy Spirit can change your wife’s heart. So we love, we encourage, and repeatedly we turn our wife over to Christ because he can change her heart. He can move in her. He can do things that we can’t.

The same is true of women. You can give all the sex that your man wants. You can cook him all his favorite meals. You can keep the house extra clean. You can give him time alone in his man cave. And God can use all those things, but none of them performed to bring about change will work to change your man’s heart. Only God can do that.

That is what happened with Solomon and his queen. Her heart was transformed and stirred up toward her husband when just a little while ago it wasn’t at all. She was indifferent because she was tired. But then she became sick with love. God did that.

* Have you ever fallen into the trap of leverage? Do you turn your spouse over to Christ, knowing only He can change him/her? Do you realize that He loves your spouse more than even you?

from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler

Young Man
‘You are beautiful, my darling, beautiful beyond words. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are as white as sheep, recently shorn and freshly washed. Your smile is flawless, each tooth matched with its twin. Your lips are like scarlet ribbon; your mouth is inviting. Your cheeks are like rosy pomegranates behind your veil. Your neck is as beautiful as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes. Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle grazing among the lilies. Before the dawn breezes blow and the night shadows flee, I will hurry to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon. Come down from Mount Amana, from the peaks of Senir and Hermon, where the lions have their dens and leopards live among the hills. You have captured my heart, my treasure, my bride. You hold it hostage with one glance of your eyes, with a single jewel of your necklace. Your love delights me, my treasure, my bride. Your love is better than wine, your perfume more fragrant than spices. Your lips are as sweet as nectar, my bride. Honey and milk are under your tongue. Your clothes are scented like the cedars of Lebanon. You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain. Your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates with rare spices— henna with nard, nard and saffron, fragrant calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, and every other lovely spice. You are a garden fountain, a well of fresh water streaming down from Lebanon’s mountains.
Young Woman
Awake, north wind! Rise up, south wind! Blow on my garden and spread its fragrance all around. Come into your garden, my love; taste its finest fruits.’ Song of Songs 4:1-16(NLT)

Maybe you’ve read through Song of Solomon 4 and thought, “You know, this sounds like a really beautiful thing, but I’m a messed-up person and this is a broken world, and it all seems pretty unrealistic.”

All of us have been wounded and hurt in some way. We’re all insecure, fearful, and broken. Maybe you are a husband thinking, “I’ve already blown it. I haven’t led my wife like Solomon, so that ship has already sailed.” Maybe you’re a wife thinking, “I don’t want to be unresponsive to my husband, but I don’t know how to make myself enjoy this.”

Human beings are so complex. When you factor in sin, trauma, insecurity, and anxiety, our brokenness becomes part of that complexity. We can begin to feel indecipherable, unfixable.

When I was growing up, one thing I couldn’t figure out was what was going on at church. Everybody seemed so happy, and I couldn’t figure out why.

Or if you just don’t understand this whole Christianity thing, you may get really confused about why people become emotional when it comes to the thought of God. What’s going on inside of them that thinking about some God up in heaven would make them weep?

So I want to clue you in because it’s something that I learned over time by God’s grace working in my life through the Christian message. What people are celebrating is that while we were at our worst, Jesus still loved us.

Intimacy is hard for broken people. We need Jesus. We need his help. But when you’ve gotten closer and closer to the incredible reality that God chose you, forgave you, and approved of you despite your sin, all because of Jesus Christ, that grace is satisfying and empowering, and it can be carried over into your marriage. It can be carried over in the way you respond to your spouse, confident and free because of Christ’s work in your life. It can be carried over in the way you forgive your spouse’s sins and overlook his or her imperfections, as a way of sharing what God has given you.

* Have you ever meditated on just how big it is that while you were at your worst, Jesus still loved you? How does this affect your relationship and sexual relationship with your spouse?

from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler

‘You are my private garden, my treasure, my bride, a secluded spring, a hidden fountain. Your thighs shelter a paradise of pomegranates with rare spices— henna with nard, nard and saffron, fragrant calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees of frankincense, myrrh, and aloes, and every other lovely spice. You are a garden fountain, a well of fresh water streaming down from Lebanon’s mountains. ‘ Song of Songs 4:12-15(NLT)

‘Whatever is good and perfect is a gift coming down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. ‘ James 1:17(NLT)

The freedom of the marriage bed is seen here to be a correlation of, for instance, entering the Holy of Holies after being forbidden access for so long.

I don’t want to overstate it. This is an analogy, not an equation. But it’s a good, biblical analogy. There was something holy taking place between husband and wife. It was sacred, special, unique.

“Holy” has often been defined as “being set apart for special use.” Sex certainly fits that description. It is not for everybody. It is set aside for special use in marriage. Sex is holy.

Physically speaking, they had a great time, of course, but there was something behind his desire to touch her that was greater than testosterone or the desire for an orgasm. As C. S. Lewis wrote, “Pleasures are shafts of the glory as it strikes our sensibility… Make every pleasure into a channel of adoration.” He was speaking of the Christian’s need to follow every earthly pleasure back to its source in the God who is the giver of every good thing (see James 1:17), that he might get the glory.

And that is why sex is holy—it is meant to remind us of the God who gave it to us, who takes joy in union with his people. We don’t need to overspiritualize sex to see it this way; we just need to approach it the way the Bible ordained and be grateful for it. Seeing sex as holy will also help us love our spouses more greatly. Gary Thomas wrote:

“Sex is about the physical touch, to be sure, but it is about far more than physical touch. It is about what is going on inside us. Developing a fulfilling sex life means I concern myself more with bringing generosity and service to bed than with bringing washboard abdomens. It means I see my wife as a holy temple of God, not just as a tantalizing human body. It even means that sex becomes a form of physical prayer—a picture of heavenly intimacy that rivals the shekinah glory of old.”

* Do you ever think of your spouse’s body as a holy temple of God? Do you worship and thank God in sex?

from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler

‘Your breasts are like two fawns, twin fawns of a gazelle grazing among the lilies. Before the dawn breezes blow and the night shadows flee, I will hurry to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. You are altogether beautiful, my darling, beautiful in every way. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon. Come down from Mount Amana, from the peaks of Senir and Hermon, where the lions have their dens and leopards live among the hills.’ Song of Songs 4:5-8(NLT)

What Solomon did to romance his bride initiated deeper levels of intimacy and vulnerability. As a result, as this chapter progresses, we see increasing openness. He next moved to behold her physical beauty more fully.

“Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze among the lilies” (4:5). Her dress was at least half off as she stood topless before him, and he praised her still, poetically complimenting her breasts.

This metaphor may be a little difficult to decipher, but let me see if I can break it down for you. Fawns are baby deer, right? Now, if you saw two baby deer grazing among the lilies, how would you approach them? Let’s assume you have some sense and an appreciation for nature. What do you do? Well, for instance, you don’t tackle fawns. You approach them quietly and gingerly. And if they don’t run away as you slowly approach, you don’t ring their necks when you get there, right?

Are you following me here?

We see in this portion of the text that marital sex is not only romantic but also gentle.

Women respond to slowness and gentleness. Once you’ve reached the point of intercourse, she may want you to move more quickly and touch more firmly, but most women can’t get to that point until they’ve felt wooed into it. They want to feel safe and secure. They want to feel embraced more than grabbed, caressed more than groped.

Make no mistake: Solomon looked at his wife’s naked breasts. He was going to touch them and kiss them. He wanted to go further. But he was going about the whole thing with an evident tenderness. He was interested in more than his own gratification; he wanted his bride to feel sexual pleasure too—but beyond that, he wanted her to feel loved.

* Is your primary motivation during sex your own pleasure, or to make your spouse feel loved? Does it show in how you act? Have you had a real conversation with your spouse about whether they feel safe and secure during sex?

from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler

‘You are beautiful, my darling, beautiful beyond words. Your eyes are like doves behind your veil. Your hair falls in waves, like a flock of goats winding down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are as white as sheep, recently shorn and freshly washed. Your smile is flawless, each tooth matched with its twin. Your lips are like scarlet ribbon; your mouth is inviting. Your cheeks are like rosy pomegranates behind your veil. Your neck is as beautiful as the tower of David, jeweled with the shields of a thousand heroes.’ Song of Songs 4:1-4(NLT)

Once again, it’s very clear that these two saved themselves for each other, because we’ve seen the whole romance from the beginning. It’s also very clear that the romance didn’t stop on the wedding day. It was carried through into the wedding night. They weren’t even undressed yet when Solomon remarked on her captivating presence.

This is such an important principle to remember, especially for men. Notice how Solomon proceeded, husbands. He wasn’t quick or rough. He hadn’t even touched her yet. He spent the first moments where intimacy began to build by saying, essentially, “Your soul is beautiful.”

He wasn’t in a hurry. He gazed at her beauty and went step-by-step, slowly praising her—eyes, mouth, cheeks, neck. This whole thing is very, very romantic. Notice he hadn’t even gone below her net yet. (Yet!) He started from the top and worked his way slowly down, doling out praise in a very measured fashion.

As he did this, what do you think happened to her nerves, her fear, her insecurity? If he had just hauled off and grabbed her right off the bat, her guard would likely have gone right back up again. But he slowly disarmed her before he disrobed her. We know from the previous chapters that she likely carried around some insecurity about her body, about her appearance, as nearly every woman does. Solomon knew this. And because Solomon was very wise, he also knew that insecure women do not feel safe. Nor do they feel free and sexually uninhibited.

Solomon understood a simple principle. Unless and until his bride felt confident in her own skin—and felt confident that Solomon was confident in her—she wouldn’t be ready to give herself fully to him.

And, of course, he was also aware that most women, unlike men, aren’t always sexually “ready to go.” They need some time, some tending to. You’ve probably heard the old adage that women aren’t microwaves but Crock-Pots. So his wise understanding of how she was wired and what she needed to hear is that marital sex according to God’s Word is romantic.

* Do you believe that God made sex and that He made it to be romantic? Have you ever thought on the sexual differences between women and men? How does this difference give you another opportunity to love your spouse sacrificially?

from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler

‘For wives, this means submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything. For husbands, this means love your wives, just as Christ loved the church. He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean, washed by the cleansing of God’s word. He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault. In the same way, husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies. For a man who loves his wife actually shows love for himself. No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church. And we are members of his body. As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. So again I say, each man must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.’ Ephesians 5:22-33(NLT)

‘Look, it is Solomon’s carriage, surrounded by sixty heroic men, the best of Israel’s soldiers. They are all skilled swordsmen, experienced warriors. Each wears a sword on his thigh, ready to defend the king against an attack in the night.’ Song of Songs 3:7-8(NLT)

In the covenant of marriage, husband and wife give themselves to each other. It’s not fifty-fifty; it’s one hundred-one hundred. At any given time either spouse won’t have 100 percent to give, but this does not diminish the other’s commitment because they are not in a contract but a covenant. As in the covenant of grace initiated by God to save sinners, one party can give 100 percent even if the other gives nothing.

In a gospel-centered marriage, you give yourself to your spouse regardless of the goods or the services because that’s what true love is and because that’s what glorifies God.

If everything goes great and you find out as you start your life together that the marriage is exactly what you expected, you’re in. But if you’re like very other normal human being and things get a little problematic, and you find out you married a sinner who’s got some crazy he or she was hiding away, you’re still in.

This is why biblical marriage is so serious—and why divorce is so serious. Ephesians 5 helps us see the weight of the glory of the gospel. Submission is weighty. Sacrifice is weighty. They are weighty like the good news of Jesus Christ is weighty. They are as heavy as the cross.

And in forgiving and loving our sinful spouse, we begin to understand on a much smaller scale what it meant for our holy God to forgive and redeem us.

God’s relationship to the church is not contractual; it’s covenantal. And what’s mind-blowing about God’s covenantal love toward the church is that God fulfills the obligations of both parties! God has put on my life the command that I am to love my wife, Lauren, as Christ loved the church. That is God’s command on my life—regardless of whether or not she reciprocates that love. I don’t love her as Christ loved the church in order to get something from her; I love her that way because that is what God has commanded me to do, and that’s the way he has loved me.

* What is the difference between a contract and a covenant? Do you show this one-way, unconditional, covenantal love to your spouse? What steps can you take to show more of this type of love?

from The Mingling Of Souls by Matt Chandler