On The Business of Wooing

If anyone else were telling Israel’s story, they would tell you that the tiny nation on the ‘great sea’, as they called it, was constantly oppressed and often ruled by the neighboring kingdoms. Israel tells her story as though she is the most important nation in the world. And she is. Because she has been chosen, and loved by a remarkable suitor who has transformed her with His everlasting love. This is her story.

The pages of Scripture radiate with the stories of fervent love, of couples like Rachel and Jacob, Pricilla and Aquila, or Elkanah and Hannah. The Israelite people spoke of a love that was “like a seal over {their} heart, like a seal on {their} arm, for love is as strong as death... 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.” ( Song of Solomon 8:6-7) But this isn’t just a legend for you to curl up and read about, you are the leading women in this heart-stirring account of love lost, and the suitor who died to save his bride.

When Matt first started falling in love with me, he had to figure a way to capture my attention. I certainly never thought he would notice a girl like me. (Neither did anyone else.) The world was just beginning to thaw with the spring weather, and he would take me on long drives with the top down through the country-side...and get lost. I only just learned (because I asked him as I wrote this chapter), that he went down the wrong roads on purpose, and we were never really lost. He would call and always leave messages, but I knew that he called and encouraged lots of people. He also asked other people about me—I thought he was just a really nice guy.

Alan D. Wright wrote on the business of wooing, that “in true courtship there is no room for pride. The suitor must pour out his heart. But a wise does not reveal all his qualities at once. He wants to attract his beloved, not smother her. Most of all, he wants her to want him. That’s God’s nature too. He could easily smother you, suffocate you, and consume you. He could easily engulf you, ensnare you, and enslave you. But the Lord doesn’t need you as His possession. He already owes you. The heart of God longs for your freely given love.” At first, when Matt was ‘pursuing me’, the only result was that I thought he was a nice guy— not just to me—but to everyone. But a suitor doesn’t want the women to merely think favorably of them, a suitor’s aim is for his beloved to desire him in return. And so it is with God.