The Power of the Wait

Author: Kristin Korson

In this day and age we are bombarded from the media with sex, sex, and more sex. From TV, to movies, to advertisements, to even packaging, our eyes are bombarded with over-sexualized and overly sexualized images and scenes.

So why is it that when we start thinking about or talking about sex being referenced in the Bible we run away? Shouldn’t that be the safest place for both singles and married Christians to find truth and wisdom about intimacy in marriage?

I have always thought that Song of Songs was a book that really only married people should read. It is just right out there with the details of intimacy, and it can be difficult and awkward for single people to read. So when we got around to studying Song of Songs in SBS (School of Biblical Studies), I was excited to read it and hear the perspective of the married speakers, Scott and Anna, on it. I mostly just wondered how it was going to be made not awkward for us singles, as the majority of the SBS class is single (and ready to mingle…jk).

Let me tell you, after studying Song of Songs, it is officially one of my favorite books in the Bible thus far and is truthfully a necessary book for singles to understand. Yes, I get that reading about this pursuit and intimacy can be slightly awkward, but let’s get past that, okay? Okay.

There are two major truths that I believe singles need to see from the book of Songs: 

1. That love is worth the wait, but also worth the pursuit 

2. That love is not meant to be awakened until its time 

Truth #1: Love is worth the wait, but also worth the pursuit. 

Many of us have heard our whole lives that “True Love Waits.” Yes, I am a 90’s kid.

But what does waiting really look like? Does that mean sitting around waiting for the Right One to come around and then doing the things the Lord is calling us to do once that person comes? Or what about waiting in a ho-hum job until you get married and can have kids to be a stay-at-home mom? Or…the list could go on.

Honestly, I used to be in the first category. I had all these plans in my head that were all contingent on getting married first. I would be a missionary, with a husband. I would go serve somewhere long term, with a husband. I would leave my family and the United States, with a husband. I would do all the things the Lord was calling me to do, with a husband.

I could think of all the reasons or excuses why I should stay, but at some point I knew God was calling me to go! So, I left all of those things behind and stopped waiting around for Mr. Right, and I just went.

The story of the couple in Song of Songs returns over and over again to the warning to not awaken love until it pleases. I’ll talk more on this later, but what I want to point out now is that this is a call to us singles, both women and men, to not give in to the pressures of society and to stop waiting for Mr. or Ms. Right!

It might seem like heresy to say that singles should stop waiting, so let me explain what I mean. I am not saying don’t wait for sex, please do that! What I am saying is that there is a difference between passive waiting and active waiting.

Women, passive waiting is like running on a hamster wheel until Prince Charming pulls you off to start your life. Men, passive waiting is like having the money for and ability to buy a race car but waiting for someone else to affirm in you to go get it and drive it, because you cannot be called a failure if you haven’t tried. Passive waiting is the kind of waiting that seems easy in the moment but leaves us with spiritual ramifications that can hurt us down the road. It keeps us living in our heads dreaming about what’s next instead of actively living out the sweet life God has for us now.

I believe as Christian singles we are called to active waiting, the kind of waiting that says yes to God and running the race with him until we meet someone running just as hard next to us.

Andy Byrd, one of my favorite YWAM speakers on relationships said, “Run so hard and focused on God that when it is right you will look up and see someone running right along with you.”

So, my call for Christian singles out there (especially those who are desiring marriage someday) is to just hard-core pursue what the Lord is calling you to do and to keep your gaze locked with His. He will sustain you and provide for you every step of the way, you just have to trust that he is a Good Father and will give you those desires in His timing. Pursue the love of God so hard that human love seamlessly arrives.

This takes us to the second truth.

Truth # 2: Love is not meant to be awakened until it is time

I kind of referenced it when talking about waiting, but I want to stress this again and again that love is not meant to be awakened prematurely.

If I were to ask you to raise your hand if you felt like you had awakened love prematurely, I would bet that half or more than half of you would be raising your hand.

We live in a time where love is cheap. Making the pursuit of it easy but dangerous. We try to fulfill our desire for love through a whole bunch of selfish acts put together thinking that it is going to bring fulfillment and satisfaction. What we think love is these days might be just a knock-off version of the real thing.

For me I thought I had found “real love” a few years back because it was the first time someone accepted me fully and completely as I was – not wanting me to lose five pounds, or start exercising, or be an athlete, or etc. Just plain old me. The “good Christian girl” part of me knew that what I was choosing to walk into was wrong, but it felt so right in the moment. I was loved, I was known, I was accepted – or at least I thought what I had found was real. But I bet you know how it ended. I wouldn’t say that I ended up with a broken heart, but that’s only thanks to Jesus. What I did end up with though was the emotional and physical repercussions that come with awakening love before its time. I had let myself be satisfied with a knock-off version of love, and let me tell you it is only in hindsight that you know something is a knock-off.

Not that I live with any regrets, because if it weren’t for that relationship I wouldn’t have come to know the Lord, but I wish the me before this relationship had known this truth. I was walking in the way of the world, and a broken and sinful world only breeds brokenness and sin.

With that said, all of the warnings of Song of Songs lead up to this beautiful paradigm – that love is as strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave.

Do you understand that? When messing with love in the wrong context and time, we are messing with death – spiritual, emotional, physical death.

Obviously, knowing that I am writing this to you today proves that death didn’t literally come when I awakened love prematurely. But what I believe the author is wanting to show is that just as death is probably the strongest power in the world, inevitably coming for everyone, love should be viewed as having the same kind of strength. The author is also wanting to show that jealousy is as strong as the grave because God doesn’t intend for his children to deal with the mess and repercussions of prematurely awakened earthly love. He is a God who desires intimacy so deeply with his beloved that he doesn’t want anything to break the perfect love in Christ that we are called to live in.

Imagine your favorite sitting-on-the-edge-of-your-seat action movie scene where the main character may or may not die in the end. Now put yourself as the main character. Would you choose to put yourself in that situation? (I mean, you may if you are a living-on-the-edge kind of person.) But what I want us to see is that awakening love before its time is more of a life or death situation than we think. Most people think that when it comes to love and sex it isn’t that big of a deal. But with God we need to see that he holds love to a different standard and is calling us to that standard as well.

The point we need to understand is that love is not something cheap and easy. It should be taken very seriously and not just given or taken whenever it feels right.

I don’t want to get stuck on the morbid piece of this, but I want us to see how serious it is when dealing with love.

So, my call to us as singles is to actively wait on the Lord and his timing for us with love, and then to not awaken it until its perfect time.

Are you choosing to actively wait on love or are you choosing to be satisfied with a knock-off version of love? If you are choosing to be satisfied with a knock-off version of love, then what do you feel the Lord is wanting you to do about it?

Remember that real love is worth the wait and the pursuit, and it should not be awakened until it’s time. Let’s hard-core pursue the things the Lord is calling us to and to cling to the love of Jesus as we actively wait.