Gentlemen for those of you who read yesterday's post and felt conviction I can understand because God was showing me today that I am writing about things like that but I still have much to learn about what I write. Today's post will punch us again in the stomach so read and be ready like I will to be convicted by God and His call for us as His chosen men and husbands. I am going to spend the next 2 days looking at some important verses from Song of Solomon.
Song of Solomon 2:14-15
"My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places on the mountainside, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely. Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom."
These 2 simple verses can teach us a lot of Biblical truths and important aspects of a Godly honoring and caring man. The first thing I have to ask is, do you compliment your wife on everything amazing about her that God has created? This women you made a covenant with is a beautiful unique creation and masterpiece of God. Do you realize that? God has designed her with amazing care and creativity. God crafted her after His inner peace and holiness and then after He designed her, He gave her to you as His daughter and gift to care for and protect. These verses remind us men that we need to compliment and admire the beauty that God has created in her. Does your beloved have a sweet voice? Does she have rich deep full eyes of compassion? Is she an amazing cook? Does she raise and guide your children worthy and honoring of God? Does she listen, respect and follow you? How has God created an amazing gift for you in your wife? I guarantee that God has created a masterpiece in your wife, so you need to let her know what you admire and love about her. Compliment her, tell her, show her, remind her, make sure that your beloved knows the aspects about her that are truly awesome and compliment her all the time. Point #1
I want to cover point #2 over the next 2 days so I will break it up into halves. So what are the foxes mentioned in the second part of these verses? A wise Pastor highlighted this text to me a few years ago and explained the important truths about these little foxes eating the vine. In the time period that this text was written, vineyards were a rich source of wealth and important for the cultural life of the Jewish people. So a farmer had to keep an eye out for anything that might come in and eat his crops or vines. A modern day example of this is the groundhog eating our pea and strawberry plants. Solomon was using the vineyard metaphor for the love between him and his wife. He was saying was that he needed to keep an eye out for the foxes or problems that would sneak in and kill and eat away at the love in his marriage. So that is the question, what eats away and kills the love in our marriage?
Men, it is our job, from this text and many others, to keep a watch out and protect the love in our marriage. If our marriages fall apart or there is problems I have no doubt that God will first hold us, the men, responsible for the failures. So we need to watch for the foxes that would kill our marriage. So lets take a look for a moment at some of the external foxes in our lives that can and will destroy our love.
#1- Our jobs. Point blank what comes first in our lives says a lot about who we are as men of God. God had better come first in your life but after Him, it had better be your wife not your job. She had better know that she is first and her love is the most important physical thing in this life. Your job is a big hungry fox that will destroy your love and covenant in a single bite.
#2- Kids. What comes first, the kids or the covenant? The Bible says the covenant with our beloved comes first followed by the multiplying of children. So your covenant with her has to be first and stay first. Children can consume so much of our time and energy but they will grow up and move out and then what happens? The kids are a deep love of our lives and will always hold a special place but they should never be before the covenant we made with our better half.
Here are 2 visible external foxes that can eat away at the covenant love in our marriages. You might have know them but maybe you never thought about them that way. Tomorrow I want to take a look at a few more external foxes that us men had better know about and be aware of so that we can keep them away from eating the vineyards of our marriage and the hearts of our valentines.
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