Kiss Me Like You Mean It (3 page)

Truth: Passion will last in a marriage, if you do it God’s way

Secular, popular culture does have two things right in the above myth. First, it is true that every couple’s
initial
passion doesn’t last. This is infatuation passion, and it always burns out, never to return. Second, culture is correct that losing passion is bad. Catastrophically bad. Marriage is nothing without passion. Loss of passion is boring, draining, destructive, a terrible example for your kids, and not glorifying to God. God does not want you to live together without passion. That’s why he put the Song of Solomon in the Bible. Secular culture is, however, tragically and completely
wrong
in two other areas of the above myth.

First, God says passion can be brought back into every marriage. Not infatuation-initial passion—but deep passion. The Song of Solomon delivers this message: “If you put God at the center of your marriage and follow his Passion Principles, you will be rewarded with a heart-thumping, fantastic, passionate love that will last as long as you both shall live.”

Second, God says that the marriage bond is sacred, and getting a divorce because of loss of passion is not acceptable. In fact, it will do great damage to you and all those close to you. God wants you to stay married and, by obeying his teaching in the Song, experience deep passion.

Myth #2: Passion Can’t Last in a Marriage, but Stay
with Your Spouse Anyway (Christian)

You will lose your passion before you reach your twentieth wedding anniversary. In fact, probably a lot sooner than that. But this is perfectly normal and no cause for alarm. Don’t panic. Those wonderful, early years of passion are a phase that all couples experience. Your passion gradually leaves and is replaced by a more mature, mellow, and committed love. You know, the kind your great-grandparents have. So, when your passion ends, don’t think that there’s something wrong with your marriage. Everything’s just fine! Your marriage is like a baseball glove that is broken in with use. Or, like a well-worn saddle. God wants you to stay with your spouse and live out your golden years in calmness and peace.

No, it’s not too exciting. Yes, the thrill is gone. But that’s what marriage is, and you just better get used to it.

Truth: You and your current spouse can experience passion ’til death parts you

It’s true that you will lose your
initial
passion. It’s not true that you can’t get passion back. By inviting God into your marriage and following his Passion Principles, your passion will come roaring back to stay.
True passion is not a phase
of marriage. It is designed by God to be a permanent part of
marriage.

It’s true that God wants you to stay married. But he certainly does not want you to be in a passion-less marriage. That is not what he has in mind for you. God wants you to feel madly in love, to enjoy exciting sex, and to remain romantic lovers all the way to when you part in death. So—as a matter of fact— your great-grandparents can have this kind of passion.

Myth #3: You Don’t Need Passion for a Good Marriage
(Christian)

The crazy-in-love passion you feel at the beginning of a romantic relationship is exhilarating, but immature. It burns brightly for a while and then fades. It’s good that it fades, because your two hearts simply couldn’t stand all that excitement for very long. It’s much better to settle down into a solid, stable, comfortable, and responsible love. Love isn’t a feeling. It’s a rational choice of the will. God isn’t concerned about you being happy in your marriage. He just wants you to stay married. Nothing bad will happen if you don’t have passion. Your marriage will be routine. Maybe even boring. So what? Your job is to hang in there until one of you dies (of natural causes).

Marriage isn’t some kind of never-ending love fest filled with romantic, gushing frivolity. Marriage is serious business. Passion has nothing to do with a good marriage. A good marriage is two persons who choose to stay together no matter how bad and painful the relationship becomes.

Truth: You do need passion for an intimate marriage

Without passion, your marriage will be way below average. Without passion, your marriage has a zero chance to be great. Intimacy cannot exist without passion, and passion is why you’re married! A lack of passion can lead to several bad things. The first bad thing is a dead marriage. The second bad thing is the loss of respect and love for your spouse. The third bad thing is each of you will think of and may look for passion outside the marriage.

Everyone has a desperate need for passion. If you don’t have it with your spouse, and you are not dedicated to living by biblical principles, you’ll try to find it somewhere else: an affair, a sexual addiction, your work, your kids, alcohol, drugs, food, a hobby . . .

How many marriages end because of a lack of passion? Too many to count.

Myth #4: Passion Doesn’t Require Any Effort; It Just
Happens (Secular, Popular Culture)

Passion is a complete and an utter mystery. It’s like magic. Nobody understands why it comes and why it goes. It’s natural. It’s spontaneous. It’s effortless. It explodes between two persons, stays for an indeterminate period of time, and then unpredictably vanishes.

Truth: Passion requires hard work

It’s true that the initial attraction and chemistry between two persons is a mystery. Nobody can explain it. But once your initial infatuation wears off, that’s when the work begins.
Getting your passion back and keeping it for a lifetime will
demand a lot of effort.

In your temporary infatuation passion, feelings come first and romantic behaviors follow. You “feel” strongly, and therefore you engage in romantic behavior.

When your infatuation passion ceases, you must reverse the process. Now, you must engage in romantic behavior first and then your feelings of passion—deeper and more intimate—will follow.

There is no mystery about the development and maintenance of deep passion. The secular world may not have a clue, but God knows exactly how real passion operates. He reveals these secrets in the Song.

Now, let’s take a look at the book of Song of Solomon itself. I need to correct three myths about the Song so you know you can trust its timeless message.

Myth: The Song Is an Allegory

A surprising number of Bible scholars, past and present, cannot accept that God would include a book on romance, sex, and passion in the Bible. So, the Song must only be about something else: God and Israel, Christ and his love for his church, or the relationship between individual Christians and Christ. All the explicitly sexual images in the Song are symbols and metaphors that have nothing to do with literal sex. Their purpose is to teach spiritual principles.

Truth: The Song is the love story of Solomon and Shulamith

The Song is about romance. Passionate love. Sex. That is its central message. The language and terms are explicitly sexual because the book is about sex! If you’ve never been in a love relationship, I guess you could miss the point of the Song. But there’s no excuse for anyone else.

The Song
is
full of symbols and metaphors, but they are all used to tastefully and beautifully describe romance, passion, love, and sex. The Song is clearly and unmistakably about a real man (Solomon), a real woman (Shulamith), and their relationship.

Myth: The Song Is about Young, Idealistic Love

The same persons who believe passion is
only a phase
in a love relationship hold this interpretation of the Song. They say it is a beautiful description of the early years of a young couple who is ecstatically in love. It helps us all as couples to look back with fondness to that bygone era of our relationships when everything was wonderful. However, this type of idealistic, passion-filled love doesn’t last, and we all have to move on to a more serious, mature love.

Truth: The Song is about a passionate love that can last and be ended only by death

Yes, the Song is about two lovers during the early years of their relationship. It describes their courtship, wedding, and the first years of their marriage. But the Song’s Passion Principles do not apply
only
to the early part of a relationship. God is teaching how to maintain a vibrant, marvelous passion throughout the entire span of a marriage.

Why would God devote an entire book of the Bible to a young, idealistic love that passes quickly and doesn’t return? The answer is, he wouldn’t! Read Song of Solomon 8:6–7 and tell me what kind of love is being described:

Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal over your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love, it would be utterly scorned.

A
seal
indicates permanence. Being as strong as
death
indicates permanence.
Waters
and
rivers
can’t wash this love away. Why? Because it is permanent. It lasts the lifetimes of the spouses.

Myth: Solomon Is Not Qualified to Write about
True Love

Be serious. I mean, come on. We’re talking about the ultimate playboy. Talk about a womanizer! The man had three hundred wives and seven hundred concubines! How could a moral degenerate like Solomon have anything to say about a passionate, permanent love between one man and one woman? Maybe he could write a book about how to get more chicks, but not one about genuine love.

Truth: God chose Solomon to write the ultimate book about real love

Two truths about Solomon that are stated in the Bible should be kept in mind. (1) Regarding his sins, the
consequences
for his sins later in life were immense. One huge, tragic, historical result was God’s taking the kingdom of Israel from Solomon’s son and the division of the kingdom (1 Kings 11:9–13) and the eventual fall of both divisions. (2) Regarding his wisdom, God told Solomon, “Ask what you wish Me to give you” (1 Kings 3:4). In response to Solomon’s request, God gave him “a wise and discerning heart, so that there has been no one like you before you, nor shall one like you arise after you” (1 Kings 3:12). From
his divinely appointed
wisdom
came 3,000 proverbs and 1,005 songs (1 Kings 4:32). And out of the wisdom with which God blessed him came this book of love.

Solomon also wrote Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, two books of incredible wisdom about life and relationships. Are we going to doubt the truth in these books because of Solomon’s sexual sins? I don’t think so.

God revealed to Solomon the truth about marriage: one man and one woman, God at the center, all their lives. God chose to use this flawed man to write the world’s most powerful how-to manual on love and passion in marriage. Despite Solomon’s terrible sexual sins, the Song is the Godbreathed truth about how to get deep passion in marriage and how to keep it. That’s why it’s in the Bible. Here’s the bottom line about passion and the Song:

Your initial infatuation passion leaves. You can get your passion back and this time it will be a deeper and much more intimate passion. The Song will tell you how.

And, because it’s God’s way, it’s guaranteed to work!

3

“Even the Dog Is More Important Than I Am!”

Scientists tell us that black holes are one of the most powerful and frightening forces in the universe. They are vast, voracious vacuums that suck everything near them into their gaping mouths. Stars, planets, and even galaxies, even light itself, cannot withstand their mighty gravitational pull. And whatever is swallowed by these horrible black holes is gone forever.

I’m not afraid of black holes. Not in the least. If I were in outer space, next to a black hole, I’d laugh in its face. I’d say, “Hey, is that all you’ve got? You’ll have to try a little harder! Bring it on!” You see, I’ve lived for years with four black holes: my four kids. I love my kids dearly. But their amazing sucking power has no equal in the universe. If you have kids, you know what I’m talking about. I’ll bet you can relate to the following brief overview of the parenting process.

There is one question that has haunted parents for centuries. Here it is: are children gifts from God, or instruments of slow torture? Actually, they are both. Parenting has moments of wonder, excitement, and enrichment—broken up by long stretches of exasperation, total chaos, and suffering.

As you begin parenthood with a newborn, you just want this little person to survive. You sneak into the nursery every thirty minutes to make sure the little thing is still breathing. You meet every need of this small, helpless creature.

When your child hits the twos and threes and is systematically destroying your home—piece by broken piece—you begin to wonder if
you
will survive.

When your child moves into junior high and becomes a teenager, you know you’re not going to make it. You realize with horror that the roles are reversed. You are now a small, helpless creature at the mercy of a far superior force: hormones.