Many of us have learned to treat desire in one of two ways. We either obey it as though every longing deserves to be fulfilled, or we fear it as though desire itself were dirty.
Song of Solomon gives us a wiser way.
Three times, the woman warns the daughters of Jerusalem not to stir up or awaken love until it pleases. The precise Hebrew sense is debated. She may be warning us not to force love before its proper time, or not to disturb it while it is rightly unfolding.
Either way, the lesson is clear. Love cannot be safely manipulated, manufactured, or rushed. Desire is not evil, but neither is it harmless. It carries enough power to bring deep delight and enough power to leave deep wounds.
That is why God gives desire both a place and boundaries. His wisdom does not shame the gift. It protects the people receiving it. Holiness is not hostility toward desire. Holiness teaches us how to receive desire without being ruled or destroyed by it.
So perhaps the question is not whether we feel desire. The question is whether we will let the God who created it teach us when to wait, how to love, and what faithfulness requires.
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