Kiss Me Like You Mean It (13 page)

Spouse: “Spiritual intimacy is very private and personal. Do you think now is the right time for us to work on that? I mean, shouldn’t we get emotional intimacy first, and then branch out to the spiritual?”

Dave Clarke: “Now—right now—is always the best time to include God in your lives and relationship. How have you done up to now, trying to emotionally bond first? We will work on some specific emotionally bonding behaviors, but the key is going to be your spiritual bonding. Real, deep emotional intimacy in a marriage never happens without God’s presence and power. It does require faith to step forward and spiritually bond when you feel vulnerable, trust is low, and you don’t feel ready to be that personal with your partner. And, it is unknown territory, and it will seem awkward and uncomfortable at first. If you step out and do it, God will reward you lavishly, and you will thank him forever.”

Now, I’ll teach you how to spiritually bond.

12

Put God Where He Belongs

Where is God in the Song of Solomon? Where is God in all this playfulness, flirtation, romance, and sexual pleasure? He’s right in the middle of it. Literally.

Solomon (5:1a)
“I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride;
I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam.
I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey;
I have drunk my wine and my milk.”

The lovers have just completed a wonderful night of lovemaking. It is their wedding night, and they’ve enjoyed intercourse for the first time. Solomon, being the expressive guy he is, describes their intercourse with enthusiasm and wonder.

At this point, the exact center of the Song, someone speaks to both Solomon and Shulamith.

(5:1b)
“Eat, friends;
Drink and imbibe deeply, O lovers.”

Who is this person? I believe it is God himself. Two experts on the Song, Dr. Craig Glickman, author of
Solomon’s Song of
Love
(New York: Howard Books, 2003), and Dr. Jack S. Deere in
The Bible Knowledge Commentary
(Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 1989), also hold this view.

God does not step away when Solomon and Shulamith consummate their love. He is right there with them in the bedroom, happy for them and blessing their physical union and passion. It may seem incredible but God actually encourages them to experience as much passion and pleasure as they possibly can.

Since God is with the lovers during intercourse, he certainly wants to be with them at all times. He wants to join them everywhere they are together. He also blesses all aspects of their love. He approves all the actions Solomon and Shulamith take in the Song to create passion and intimacy.

Most of all, because it is recorded that God enters this love story right at the center of the book, he desires to be at the center of the marriage relationship. That is where he belongs. God is clearly at the center of Solomon and Shulamith’s marriage. That’s why they have such an amazingly passionate relationship.

Is he at the center of your marriage? Have you invited him not only into your hearts, but also into your marriage?

Who Is the Source of Passion in Marriage?

When God is at the center of a marriage, what happens? Here’s what happens.

Shulamith (8:6a)
“Put me like a seal over your heart,
Like a seal on your arm.
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy is as severe as Sheol . . .”

Passion
happens! Shulamith tells Solomon she wants them to be inseparable and for their love to be strong and powerful. But she’s not done yet.

Shulamith (8:7)
“Many waters cannot quench love,
Nor will rivers overflow it;
If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love,
It would be utterly despised.”

Wow! Shulamith describes their love as precious, priceless, and unable to be extinguished. Who wants a love like this? We all do!

The key to getting a love like this is found right at the center of Shulamith’s wonderful expression of her feelings for Solomon.

Shulamith (8:6b)
“Its flashes are flashes of fire,
The very flame of the Lord.”

Shulamith says the fire of the passionate love she and Solomon feel is the fire of
God
. God creates and continues to fuel their passion for each other.

We’ve all had human passion, haven’t we? Because it’s fueled by human strength, it’s weak and never lasts. God is the source of true passion in marriage. It comes from him and only from him.

If we, as married couples, want a passion that is powerful and permanent, we have to do what Shulamith and Solomon do: put God at the center of the relationship, and keep him there.

To put God where he belongs in your marriage, you need to follow four passion principles.

Passion Principle #1: Come to Christ

As 1 Corinthians 15:3–4 makes clear, when you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins and that Jesus literally rose from the dead, then you know God and you are a Christian. (If you want to know more about beginning a personal relationship with God through Jesus, please see appendix A in the back of this book.)

Once you both have a relationship with God, you can begin to share him as a
couple
. If your spouse is not a Christian yet, I still urge you to start a spiritual bonding process. Along the way, the non-Christian spouse may come to know God through Christ.

Passion Principle #2: Share Your Personal Spiritual Growth

Part of the spiritual bond Sandy and I have comes from our private, personal relationships with God. On our own, we each actively pursue a closer and richer walk with him. I have a daily quiet time in which I pray, read the Bible, meditate on what I read, and study a devotional. I talk to God throughout the day and serve him as he brings opportunity my way. Sandy works on her own spiritual life in many of these same ways.

We spiritually bond when we come
together
on a regular basis and share the personal growth we are experiencing. We do this during our couple talk times. I tell Sandy the insights I’ve gained from my Bible reading, how God is working in my life, and what I believe God wants me to learn in the next several months. Sandy then tells me what’s going on in her spiritual life. This is deep, honest sharing, and it creates a powerful bond between us.

As I’ve grown spiritually, my marriage has blossomed. Seeking to be more like Christ has automatically made me a better husband. Rather than being threatened by Sandy’s strong spiritual life, I’m now genuinely interested in what’s happening between Jesus and her. And when I get a spiritual insight, or I see God moving in my life, Sandy is the first person I tell. We are sharing Christ these days, and he is blessing our marriage in too many ways to count.

If your marriage is like mine, you and your spouse will grow at different rates. That’s okay. The important thing is that you’re both growing. A big part of the spiritual bond I’m talking about is sharing the personal growth you each experience. Following the suggestions I have made for your own spiritual life will fill your reservoir of things to share with your spouse. You cannot share what you don’t have.

Passion Principle #3: Pray Together

You can pray as a couple in many different, creative ways. The following practical guidelines can get you started.

Schedule three five-minute prayer times each week in your
couple talk times.
(I discussed the couple talk times in chapter four.) You can pray for the first five minutes of three of your scheduled 30-minute couple times. This not only makes fitting prayer into busy schedules more convenient, but it creates a deeper mood and warms you up for the conversation part of your couple time.

Choose one special place in your home to pray.
Using the place where you have your couple times makes the most sense. After prayer, just stay where you are and move into conversation. This place must be private and quiet. Get the kids out of your hair. This is not family devotions; it’s couple prayer time.

When you pray, hold hands.
This connects you, and it is an outward expression of your one-flesh relationship.

Pray out loud.
You’re not spiritually bonding if you pray silently. Listening to your partner talk to God is an important part of sharing his or her bond with God. It is common for one spouse or sometimes both spouses to struggle with praying out loud. If you have not prayed out loud in another’s presence, it will be a new and maybe uncomfortable experience at first. The spouse for whom the experience is the newest and perhaps is intimidating may pray silently for the first week or two. To indicate he or she is finished praying, the silent partner may just squeeze his or her partner’s hand.

In the beginning, neither one of you will be praying on a deep, personal level. You may feel vulnerable and not completely at ease at first. You’ll bring up topics that are important to you, but are not that deep and intimate. When you have prayed together for a while, you will gradually feel safe and increase your transparency in prayer. Make that a significant goal.

Husband, you may be too intimidated to pray in front of your wife. She talks better—and more—than you, and she probably will pray “better” than you will. She may be closer to God than you. The truth is, she won’t ever criticize your prayers. After your first out-loud prayer with her, she will thank God for your words and for your courage. She will be happy and impressed beyond words that you are praying with her.

Make a list and take turns in prayer.
Get a pad and jot down the requests you each want to bring before God. When you have a list, divide it up between you and pray one at a time. Here’s a sample list one couple used during a prayer time:

the church’s missionary conference
guidance for the pastors at church
a friend’s illness
a possible promotion or increase in salary
money to pay for college tuition
the children:

Steve—his grade in science
Susan—wisdom and protection in her dating relationships
Carrie—more friends and a part-time job

our marriage:

to spend more quality time together and for the Lord’s leading in specific ways to do this
to keep praying three times a week
to have sex at least once a week

Your prayer list will also serve as a written record of God’s faithfulness. As God answers your prayers, jot down the answers and the dates of the answers.

Spend a few minutes at each prayer session
praising God
for who he is and
always thank him
for what he has done and is doing for your family. God is worthy of praise and he loves to be worshiped in this way.

You’ll find that you both will be more open and personal in what you say to God as you continue to pray together. You’ll pray for your real concerns and the deep desires of your hearts. You’ll share intimate things that you will never share with any other person.

Passion Principle #4: Read the Bible Together

The Bible is God’s Word. That’s right—God’s actual Word! It is incredibly powerful. You can apply its power to your marriage by reading and studying and obeying it. Also, as a bonus, the Bible can cut through all the barriers between the two of you and bring you closer to each other than you have ever been.

For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12

If this isn’t a great description of intimacy, I don’t know what is! If you read and study God’s Word together, it will reveal who you really are. When two hearts are revealed, you have intimacy—an intimacy all the better and deeper because God gave it to you through his Word.

You can probably think of many helpful ways to read and study the Bible as a couple. I recommend you start by following this simple and effective plan: read on Monday, discuss on Friday.

Read on Monday

Sit down early in the week—we’ll say Monday—and read out loud the passage of Scripture you have selected. Choose a brief passage—no more than three verses. Take a moment or two to silently meditate on the passage. Either out loud or silently ask God to speak to you through what you read from his Word.

Then take turns briefly discussing your response to the passage. What does it mean? What is God saying to you? What thoughts or emotions does the passage trigger in you? (This is not a process of learning deeper truths in the Bible or always getting answers to hard questions. That comes through study of the Bible, through weekly classes and group studies and sermons.)

At the end of this meeting, do three things:

Schedule a time to discuss the passage on Friday.

Pray together, out loud, that God will speak to you both over the next four or five days through the passage you read.

Each of you write the passage on a three-by-five card. Over the next few days, agree to read the passage at least once a day and meditate on it. You could make this brief meditation part of your personal, daily quiet time with the Lord. You are preparing for Friday!

As you meditate and pray for insight from God, jot down on the back of your card what you think God is impressing on your mind and heart about the verse. By Friday, you’ll each have a few notes written down.