1I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved. 2I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. 3I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them? 4My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. 5I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. 6I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. 7The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. 8I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love.

You may only get one knock. By the end of Song of Solomon 5:1-8 the Shulamite woman finds herself in a not so good situation. Now in my first read through, I felt bad for her. But as I read again, it dawned on me that she had really put herself in this situation. In verse 3 you can see that there is no urgency, just hesitancy. The Shulamite woman delays in responding and as a result, she misses her opportunity and a sequence of distressing events unfold. So does this bring any situations to mind for you? I can think of quite a number of times when God has placed an opportunity before me and I failed to respond quickly enough or respond at all, and because of that, I have missed good things that God had for me. Now a few times, God has put a particular opportunity before again, but not always. That makes me sad, but the blame falls on me and me alone. Responding to God is key if we want to grow and make our lives count for Christ. So how can we be more tuned in to what God puts before us? Or maybe we do see the opportunity but we’re afraid or not sure. How can we work through our hesitancy to take full advantage of the situation?