Song of Solomon 5:3

She was occupied rather with her own ease than His claims, and so to respond to His appeal involved sacrifice and required energy. How many of us lose the visits of Christ in this way! He stands by us, seeking to show Himself to us in a fuller way, and we know He is there. But we are preoccupied, or have set our hearts for the time on some other object. So we lose the enjoyment and communion He was offering. Like the bride, we had put off our coat and could not put it on again... We had washed our feet, and we were unwilling to soil them, even though it was the Lord Himself who was calling us to open the door.

The bride, though not insensible to this touching appeal, does not know how to cast off her sloth. She finds it is easier to take off the tunic than to put it on, easier to ungird the loins than to gird them up. To respond to this appeal calls for energy and sacrifice. Selfish ease has weakened the bride, and twice she asks, "How should I?" She has to learn that, left to herself, she cannot throw off her lethargy... If we cannot restore our souls, He can, and He does. "He restores my soul" is the experience of the Psalmist. In the scene that follows we see the way love takes to restore our wandering affections — painful to the flesh, but it leads to a blessed end.

He calls to her from outside, not to go out to him, but to open the door so that he might come into the room where she was. He stands outside and tells her his condition... She hears his voice, knows what he says, but stays where she is. Self comes in and keeps her from opening the door. At first we saw her thinking of her appearance; now she thinks of the trouble it will cost her. Before, when he had spoken, she hinted that his invitation came too early. Now she would tell him his call came at the wrong time. Need we wonder at her? Have not many acted in just the same way?

It is also worth special note that never before, at any one time, had He addressed her with so many terms of endearment. "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one." Such, O my soul, is the love of Christ — the love of Christ to a wandering one. Consider it well. There is only one heart that never changes... But the sleeping bride meets all this patient, wonderful love with great indifference. She answers it with the most trivial and frivolous excuses.

But He never forces Himself on unwilling hearts; and so, when He found the door closed against Him, He withdrew... Her sloth is removed, and she gets up and opens to her Beloved; but He "had turned and gone." She had lost her opportunity. When her Beloved was pressing to come in, she could not make the effort to receive Him; now that she had opened the door, it was to find He was gone. The soul has to learn that communion and the enjoyment of intimacy are only possible to a responsive heart.

It is always a sad thing when, by our own doing, we get into a state that we feel does not fit with the Lord's presence. It is sad when we get into a position where we would be uneasy and ashamed if He stepped in on us without warning... There is nothing in all the world that can make up for the loss of the assurance that the Lord is present with us in what we are doing.