Song of Solomon 5:5-6. "I arose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, upon the handles of the bolt. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed me when he spoke. I sought him but found him not; I called him, but he gave no answer."

This is another reading I have had before and I commented on the eroticism of it - waking in the night to open the door to one's beloved with fingers dripping with liquid myrrh, but he is gone, and she cannot find him! - oh my, such imagery! This book is a love song - a depiction of the way God loves us. It shows the give and take - the way He is always offering His love to us; the way He is absolutely crazy about us; and the way we play coy sometimes - making Him come to the bolted door and knock while we are asleep.

We are asleep, and he is always knocking. But when we wake up, finally realizing our love and need for him, our fingers dripping with myrrh, He is often not at the door when we unbolt it and open to Him. Then we go out, into the city, crazy with love, looking for Him, asking everyone we see, getting them to help us find Him.

Why does God, who was always seeking us, move away from us just when He knows we are ready to go "all in" with Him? Because only then will we truly appreciate Him and His tremendous love. We have to want Him enough to seek Him, to go through the struggle and process of finding Him. The only things that we, in our perverse state, truly appreciate are the things for which we have fought and sacrificed. God knows this about us (He has been one of us!), and so He lets us fight and sacrifice for Him, knowing that this will perfect our love for Him.