The Believer Who Is Loved by the Lord

5I am dark, but lovely, you daughters of Jerusalem, like Kedar’s tents, like Solomon’s curtains. 6Don’t stare at me because I am dark, because the sun has scorched me. My mother’s sons were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards. I haven’t kept my own vineyard. 7Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; For why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions? 8If you don’t know, most beautiful among women, follow the tracks of the sheep. Graze your young goats beside the shepherds’ tents.

You have probably read the book *Praise Makes Even a Whale Dance*.

The story runs roughly like this.

Wes Kingsley, an executive at a large company, watched one day as a killer whale, that predator of the sea, performed tricks at the direction of one small trainer. A strong curiosity rose in him: how can a whale perform tricks? The trainer he asked said that when the whale did well he praised it extravagantly and had it repeat the action so that it would not forget what it had done right, and that when the behavior was bad he turned away from it instead. The reason is that paying attention to a wrong action makes the whale remember it, so you have to switch it quickly to some other action. Kingsley put the method the trainer taught him to work in his workplace and in his home, and in both places the results were good enough to satisfy him. Praise made the whale dance, and he came to see that praise is the force that moves people too.

Watching praise change a workplace and even a home, I think what happened is this: praise gave those people confidence, and a right judgment that recognized them gave them the strength to do anything at all. Being recognized and praised by people matters a great deal. And a child who is recognized and praised by their parents can live confidently whoever they meet and whatever situation they are put in, because it is evidence that the bond with the parents was well formed.

Between a man and a woman too, love grows deeper when the two recognize and praise each other. When the woman he loves recognizes a man and trusts him, he grows bolder and does his own part with confidence. A man’s heart is such that he gives his best in return to a woman who trusts him and praises him.

Praise comes easily when you love the other person, because everything the one you love does matches your own thinking. But mature people need to know that praise alone cannot hold a relationship together. After you have given someone confidence through praise, you must draw out their hidden ability through counsel and help them live rightly in the world; that is the way to love them more. And so praise is something both the one giving it and the one receiving it have to work at, if a good relationship is to hold.

The woman was made from the man’s rib, so the man she loves can become her whole life, and one word from him can make her cry or laugh. If the one she loves understands that she is struggling and afraid and hurting, a woman’s heart is such that she will lay down her own life. Once she is sure that he will protect her and love her in any situation, poor or physically weak, then whatever her circumstances a woman finds the strength to smile brightly, with a happy heart, and come through.

If a woman and a man who are loved become one in faith, no hard situation frightens them and they can overcome any obstruction. Love is that great a thing; it can change how a person thinks and turn a heart around. See Christ here as the husband and believers as the wife and this becomes far easier to understand. Because a believer who enjoys peace inside the Christ who protects believers holds a faith able to defeat any attack the world makes.

Song of Solomon 1:5

5I am dark, but lovely, you daughters of Jerusalem, like Kedar’s tents, like Solomon’s curtains.

The Shulammite loved Solomon without dwelling on her circumstances or her looks. Once she was in love, you can see her saying confidently that she is dark but lovely, and that though she is like the tents of Kedar she is like Solomon’s curtains. In saying this she is saying that although her looks are poor, she is fully qualified to be loved by Solomon. She had this confidence because she knew that Solomon loved her.

The tents of Kedar are the tents of nomads. They were covered with black hair, so they were dark and unimpressive. She had worked in the vineyard, and while she said her sun-darkened appearance was like the tents of Kedar, she also confidently compared herself to Solomon’s curtains. What made a poor, unimpressive Shulammite able to speak so boldly? This is the power of love. Her outward appearance was poor, but Solomon recognized the beauty coming out of her from within, and through him she was able to become someone precious.

In the same way believers are people the world finds unimpressive, like the tents of Kedar. But once they receive the love of God, a believer overflowing with the fullness of the Holy Spirit is precious before God, if nowhere else, whatever their outward appearance.

Song of Solomon 1:6

6Don’t stare at me because I am dark, because the sun has scorched me. My mother’s sons were angry with me. They made me keeper of the vineyards. I haven’t kept my own vineyard.

The Shulammite had lived a hard life, mistreated by her brothers and working all day in the vineyard. Guarding her own vineyard would have been hard enough for a woman on her own, and having to tend her brothers’ vineyards as well, her pain and loneliness must have been great. She had no strength of her own to overcome her brothers’ mistreatment. She had her own vineyard to tend, but she was afraid of her brothers and could not put a hand to it. And if she had tended her brothers’ vineyards diligently so that they bore much fruit, her brothers would not have thanked her; they would have worked her harder for being good at the job. And while giving her not the smallest share of the harvest, they would have mocked her instead, asking why her own vineyard was barren and lay waste.

The world believers live in is like the brothers’ vineyard: however hard they work, it belongs to the world and not to them. The harder they work, the more the world prospers, while what their effort earns them is slight. Meanwhile the spiritual vineyard that was given to believers as their own portion will grow more barren still.

Like the Shulammite’s brothers, a world that bullies by force is threatening believers so that they cannot tend their own vineyard. And then it will mock the believers who gave in to it for having no fruit of the soul. Believers are pressed by the world’s power and work only to survive; and if, when they come back to the vineyard God gave them, they find it without fruit, it will be empty and painful. As the Shulammite laments that she could not keep her own vineyard, believers will lament that they could not keep the vineyard of faith, and they will feel spiritually hollow.

To get out of that situation the Shulammite needed Solomon absolutely. The world obstructs believers by every means so that they bear no fruit; but the Shulammite could harvest at least a little only by carving out time and working for her own vineyard. Believers have no choice but to spend all their time on the world. But only by carving time out of it and working for their own souls can they gather spiritual fruit. And when a believer who is working at it meets a problem of the world that cannot possibly be solved, that is when the help of God can come.

Once God takes an interest in a believer, the world can no longer persecute that believer. Just as the Shulammite’s brothers were already nothing to fear once she had met Solomon the king, so, if a believer is with Christ, the power of the world is already nothing to fear. That power can be seen, and that makes it all the more frightening; but you hold the unseen power of God, you feel it and you believe it, so you can say boldly, as the Shulammite did, “I am like Solomon’s curtains.”

1 John 4:18

18There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear has punishment. He who fears is not made perfect in love.

There is no fear in love — that is, the fear a slave carries cannot live alongside real love. If you are inside the love of God, you have no need to fear the judgment coming on this world that works believers like slaves.

Once the Shulammite was sure of Solomon’s love she became strong and bold. Real Christians, who live lives of faith and love and obedience inside the love of God, know the authority of Christ the king; so the moment they are sure of that love, they too can be strong and bold.

1 Corinthians 1:26-29

26For you see your calling, brothers, that not many are wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, and not many noble; 27but God chose the foolish things of the world that he might put to shame those who are wise. God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong; 28and God chose the lowly things of the world, and the things that are despised, and the things that are not, that he might bring to nothing the things that are: 29that no flesh should boast before God.

This is how a poor and powerless woman came to fall in love with King Solomon. God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and chooses the weak things to shame the strong. Now a believer who is loved by Christ is poor no longer.

The world despises people who have no wealth, no strength, no honor and no power, calling them low. It treats them carelessly for not belonging to the capable and privileged class. But God chose the powerless people the world had thrown away and set them up with the wisdom of heaven; he chose the despised and made them spiritually rich. That is because God’s measure for raising a person up is not the world’s. Just as a Shulammite who could not possibly be loved by Solomon is loved, God chose us, filthy with sin like the tents of Kedar, and shamed the people who boast of their own wisdom and strength as though the world were everything.

Without Solomon the Shulammite is only a vineyard keeper trembling with fear. Believers whom God is not with are only slaves of power, living pressed down by the world’s strength and trembling in fear.

Song of Solomon 1:7

7Tell me, you whom my soul loves, where you graze your flock, where you rest them at noon; For why should I be as one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?

The more the present frightened her, the more the Shulammite longed for Solomon to be her refuge, rather than submitting to her brothers. However poor and unimpressive she was, she longed for the one who recognized her, and she set out to find him. The women told the Shulammite, who was looking for Solomon with all her heart, that if she wanted to find him she should follow the tracks of the flock and he would be there.

In those days even princes were trained for a period in shepherding, we are told. Only by being trained to keep sheep could they know the hardships of the people. Jesus too knew how weak human beings are and how easily they sin, and that must be why he set his throne aside and came into the world. This is how Solomon, having become a shepherd, was able to meet the Shulammite, and the two came into a deeper love.

That the shepherd is with the flock is a saying full of meaning. Follow the tracks of the flock and Solomon the shepherd will be there; the Shulammite can meet him without wandering about in search of him. If you want to meet Christ and are wandering because you do not know the way, go where the flock is and you can meet him easily. Sheep that feed on the pasture of truth do not travel the world’s broad roads; they follow the shepherd along the narrow path where the grass grows thick. On the broad and splendid roads of the world there is no pasture a sheep can eat. And a sheep that has lost the shepherd and cannot find the way and has gone out onto the broad road, will most likely be caught by someone hunting for it and will not escape death.

Psalm 23:1-2

1Yahweh is my shepherd: I shall lack nothing. 2He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.

As the psalm sings, follow the tracks of the sheep and, narrow and hard as the way is, you will find Solomon there with them. As the Shulammite searched with all her heart for where Solomon was, you must search for Christ by making your life worship. As the Shulammite asked the women of Jerusalem where Solomon was, we must ask those who are spiritually wise, and until we meet Christ we must not stop the steps of faith that go toward him.

What are you doing to meet the Christ you love? Do you give up as soon as you look for Christ and cannot see him? If you do not know where he is, go where the flock is that hears his voice and follows it, and you can meet him there. Christ is leading his flock beside still waters and in green pastures, so go there and you will find Christ, teaching the word of truth.

Solomon saw the Shulammite who had come looking for him and praised her as lovely; and Christ will commend you, who have come looking for truth, as a faithful servant. That commendation will restore your confidence, and it will help you not to fear a world that comes at you holding strength and power. A person filled with the certainty of being loved is never afraid, because there is someone who loves them and keeps them safe.

Are you certain of the love of Christ? Then do not be afraid. Because the Lord who is there does not look at the splendor of the coat you wear in the world; he looks at the love toward God running through your heart.

May you love God more deeply still and share in his glory. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.