“Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?”

She’s leaning on her beloved. We need to lean on Christ.

“You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”

The Hebrew word translated “stayed” can also be translated as lean, as rest. We lean back and rest on Christ, and He keeps us in peace because He is peace.

Lean back into His arms, rest your head on Him. Think of John reclining on Jesus at the table at the Last Supper. How could our mind not be at rest if we were leaning on Him? How could our thoughts be elsewhere if were leaning on Him and His right arm embraced us?

I wanted to point out one other word from chapter eight, which is the last chapter of Song of Solomon.

She says that his “jealousy is fierce as the grave.”

God calls Himself jealous. Exodus 34:14 says that “you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.”

In English we call jealousy and envy synonyms, meaning we can interchange them pretty simply and not really think about it, but I want to make a distinction here.

God is not envious. There is no one out there that has something that He wants. He is satisfied in Himself, and it’s all His anyway.

Psalm 24:1 (NLT) reads, “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him.”

So, if God’s not envious. How is He jealous? He’s jealous because something that does belong to Him is with someone else. Envy says, “I want that to be mine.” Jealousy says, “That is mine.”

God’s not jealous because He needs us to be with Him. He’s jealous because He loves us and knows that apart from Him is our death and destruction. He wants us to be with Him because He cares about us. His love is true, lasting, and selfless.

Don’t give yourself over to any other love when you have God’s perfect love offered you.