Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
Song of Songs 8:4 NIVUK
When I was a student, the film ‘Wayne's World’ came out and I loved it. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it's about a couple of not very intelligent teenage rock fans and their quest to become famous DJs. Not exactly intellectually challenging, but a fun escapist movie.
There are two scenes for which this movie became known. One is when the two central characters of the movie, Wayne (played by Mike Myers) and Garth (played by Dana Carvey) and their hung-over friends are head banging in a car to Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
The second is when Garth sees an attractive woman in a bar. He strolls over to a jukebox, puts in a quarter and then dances rather hilariously to Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Foxy Lady’ to try to win her over.
We laugh at things like that, but this movie is poking fun at the way Hollywood sees romance and dating: we see someone across a room, we feel some form of electric spark, we’re instantly attracted, we become all romantic and passionate, and then we cut to the next scene where we’re getting married and our frumpy friend in glasses catches the bouquet.
The problem is that this doesn’t happen. At all. We wait all day and all night for that special someone to ‘get our motor running’, and end up paying exorbitant parking rates when they don’t arrive.
Even if we find something close to it, the Hollywood model for attraction is like a theme park roller coaster: you wait ages for something to happen, you strap yourself in for the ride, get thrown about like a sack of potatoes for just a few minutes, stumble out of it unable to walk in a straight line and lose your lunch in a nearby bush.
There has to be a better way.
And, praise God, there is.
The text here tells us what it is:
Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you: do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires.
Song of Songs 8:4 NIVUK
This text is from the most romantic and sensual book in the whole Bible. It’s a little scripted drama written about one of Solomon’s brides and his wedding to her. The imagery might be ancient, and at times amusing, but this book is quite something.
However, this verse might also be bitterly disappointing to some of us. We might come into this looking for a quick fix, for a piece of advice that will instantly turn around our lack of success in the romantic field and find us a partner for life.
But if that’s what you’re looking for, I have news for you: something like that does not exist.
What does exist, though, is firm advice that will help us navigate dating – which, at times, feels like we’re crossing a minefield blindfolded – without doing too much harm to ourselves or others.
And the first piece of advice from this verse?
Be prepared to wait and wait patiently until the time is right.
Now, I have to admit, I was terrible at this. I messed up badly. I dated two girls I should not have been anywhere near. I crashed and burned severely when it came to looking for someone.
I was useless at waiting. And I paid the price for it.
Which is why my first piece of advice is to wait patiently.
Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
Psalms 27:14 NIVUK
If it is His will for you to find someone, then you will, but in His time, not yours.
Nothing good ever came about through frustrated impatience. Only ever harm.
And during these short meditations, we’ll examine what a more loving model for dating looks like.
Questions
1. How has the Hollywood view of love, romance and dating affected your expectations and opinions?
2. Why is impatience such a bad idea when it comes to dating?
3. How can you ‘wait on the Lord’ in your situation? What will this mean for you?
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