Song of Solomon 6

Love is a mysterious and powerful thing. We have a hard time truly defining it, yet we all know it can be exhilarating or devastating. It can bruise and it can heal. It can affirm us in the deepest part of our heart, or it can confront us about the need to change. This last part is, to me, one of the great mysteries of love—how it has the ability to “mature” us into better people.

My father used to talk about four stages of love and how we move through them at different points in life (although I’m not sure everyone gets to the last one):

I love me for my sake.
I love you for my sake.
I love you for your sake.
I love me for your sake.

As you can see, #1 is total selfishness, but I think many of us tend to stop at #3, believing that it represents the highest and truest and best form of love. Of course, this is not to say that true love doesn’t include loving another person for their sake, but perhaps true love also includes loving ourselves for the sake of others. My father (who was a teacher) would use the example of spending personal time in continuing education in order to make himself a better teacher for the sake of his students.

I think we catch a glimpse of this progression in the Song of Songs. In this chapter, the maiden declares, “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” (vs 3) If this sounds somewhat familiar, that’s because it is. A few chapters ago, she said something similar: “My beloved is mine and I am his.” (Song 2:16)

Did you notice the subtle difference in those two statements? In the first one, the maiden places the emphasis on “possessing” her man: my beloved is mine. In the second statement, she places the emphasis on “belonging” to her man: I am my beloved’s. Could this just be a literary coincidence? Perhaps. Maybe there is no significant meaning to the changing emphasis.

On the other hand, maybe it is significant. Maybe it clues us in to the fact that when we enter a love relationship, we do tend to start toward the top of the list of love stages: I love you for my sake. Perhaps our focus is on what we can get out of the relationship or what the other person can do for us. The truth is, many of us also start in this stage when it comes to God! How often does our worship revolve solely around what God has done for us?!

But I think Solomon is showing us that when we stick with love, it has the power to help us shift our focus—from possessing to belonging. By the time the maiden revisits her thought, she has embraced the concept of belonging. No longer does she live unto herself; no longer is she her own. No, now she belongs to another. Thus, loving herself would be for his sake, since she belongs to him. And yes, he belongs to her as well.

God made us to belong. He didn’t create marriage to be a 50/50 proposition, but a 100/100 commitment. He created us to “go all in” with our spouse, to invest ourselves fully, no turning back. And when we love ourselves for the sake of our spouse and they love themselves for our sake, love enters a whole new dimension.

God also made us to be this way in relationship with Him. He made us, and we belong to Him. But in the person of Jesus Christ, He has also made known His intention to belong to us. And so He does. Heaven bent down and became human, and humanity is now seated on the throne at the right hand of the Father. We belong to God, and He belongs to us. He has “gone all in” for all time, proving that He is 100% committed to loving us no matter what.