I Am Lovesick

Have you ever loved God so much that it hurts?

In chapter 5 of Song of Songs, the Bride faces her second dark night — she awakens to find that her Beloved has gone, and she cannot find him.

The language in this chapter is filled with the language of deep longing amid the apparent absence of God — she “yearns” for her beloved, and experiences mocking from the people in her community for longing for him so much. They cannot believe she would seek her beloved when he has abandoned her!

Have you ever longed for God so much that it hasn’t made sense to the people around you? Or, have you maybe even internalized the messages of others —that your longing is too extreme, that maybe it’s time to move on to more practical pursuits, or that spending time on prayer isn’t as worthwhile as other activities — or a myriad of other messages that have the cumulative effect of dampening your love?

For the Bride, the distance of her lover and the mockery of her community produce a prayer of deep and even painful love for God:

Will we let the challenges, frustrations, and trials of our lives produce a new kind of prayer in us?

The 16th-century mystic St John of the Cross refers to something called “wounds of love,” or “tender flares of delicate love,” where God touches someone’s heart with His love in such a way that it produces a deep yearning for more. For St John, these wounds of love are a necessary part of the journey of growing in wholehearted love for God (see Father Thomas Dubay, Fire Within, pp. 46-47).

God touches our hearts, and we respond with desire and yearning for more because we’ve tasted a bit of the only thing that will truly satisfy us, and these prayers are what propel us forward in our prayer lives.

For the Bride in Song of Songs, this is called lovesickness.

Dark Nights, hardship, distance, and even friendships that might (even if well-meaning) misunderstand our love for God are not necessarily distractions — they’re meant by God to produce lovesickness in us.

If we let them, they will produce a deeper and purer ache in our hearts for God.

Dark nights lessen our attachment to everything other than God Himself and produce a desperate kind of yearning prayer.

Are you feeling strangely disillusioned by things that used to satisfy — even categorically good things?

Do worship songs that used to fill you now feel empty?

Do passages of Scripture that used to come alive feel dry?

Do prayer rhythms feel like they’ve lost their luster?

Perhaps this is God’s invitation to die to what was and to allow the darkness to produce a more desperate prayer in us. And perhaps this prayer can become a guiding light that leads us straight to the resurrection of a new sense of closeness with God.

We can choose to self-medicate the pain of God’s apparent distance or a community that doesn’t understand with all kinds of “quick fixes.” We might think a new church, a new relationship, or even just the quick hit of a feel-good sermon online will fix it, but in reality, all we are doing is avoiding the deep work that God does in darkness — cultivating hunger for Him and Him alone that no person, place, or position can satisfy.

Friend, can I encourage you this morning that you were made for God, and nothing but Him will satisfy you?

You were made to walk in the cool of the garden with Him, you were made to see His face free of shame, to be loved and enjoyed for who you are, and nothing less than this will fill that longing in your heart.

Could I have your permission to share vulnerably for a moment?

I had a moment about a year ago where I was doing the dishes and I felt strangely drawn to listen to a worship song that I listened to during the season where I first met the Lord.

It wasn’t a particularly spiritual moment at first, but as soon as the song played it felt like I was transported back to my youth when I met Jesus for the first time. The song felt fresh, my emotions felt tender, and there was a grace to remember the love that I had at first in real time.

I began to weep, and for the next thirty to forty-five minutes I went through different seasons of my walk with God and listened to the songs that had marked that season, each time feeling the sense of God’s presence that I had felt in that season, and all of the emotions along with it.

When I felt that the encounter was over, I was a weeping mess, remembering how God had romanced me over the years, and the only prayer that I could pray was this:

“God, I miss You.”

I miss the sense of Your nearness.

I miss the seasons where we have walked closely.

I miss You.

When God comes close it’s so obvious that nothing else will satisfy.

And seasons of distance are meant to cultivate this prayer on our lips — “I am lovesick.”

Is God cultivating a new prayer of lovesickness in you today?

So, I’d love to invite us to pray today:

• Begin by taking some deep breaths in and out. Perhaps as you breathe in pray the words from Song of Songs 1:4: “Draw me,” and as you breathe out pray: “after You.”

• Once you feel settled, begin to name with honesty: how desperate do you feel for God in this season? Is there anything that you are using to “self-medicate,” or any “quick fix” you are dreaming about, to avoid the pain of longing?

• Then, simply talk to the Lord. Perhaps pray, “Lord, would You cultivate a deeper hunger for You in me? Would you grow the lovesickness in my heart?”

• Is there any way that God might be inviting you to focus your spiritual practices over the remaining three weeks of Lent — either by fasting something to challenge God to fill a space in your life with his love or by adding a new rhythm of prayer?

Amen!

P.S. If you made this this far, I’d love to share that Morgan and I are embarking on an exciting new ministry venture this year and we are looking for a team of friends and supporters to come alongside us in some specific ways. A huge part of what’s in our heart is to launch 24-7 Prayer ATL into the wild! If you’d be interested in supporting us in some specific and practical ways, please hit “reply” and I’d love to share about what some of our needs are!