“My beloved belongs to me and I belong to him. Is that not a beautiful picture of belonging in marriage, that you belong to one another?”
-Song of Solomon 2:16
1 Corinthians 7 talks about out this as well, that a husband and a wife, their bodies belong to each other, this beautiful picture of the union that God has created in marriage. This sense of belonging, that, let’s be honest, there is an adversary who wants us to feel alone in marriage, and many people do, many husbands and wives. And I’m guessing some who are listening to this right now feel a sense of aloneness in marriage, which is obviously not God’s design. And so I want to lead us to pray for this sense of belonging, and maybe in some marriages for a recovery of this sense of belonging, that this posture in marriage would mark us, would mark each of us as a spouse.
Song of Solomon 2:16 Gives Us Hope
To look at this other person and say, “I belong to that person and they belong to me. Therefore, I want to take full responsibility for caring for them, for loving them, for honoring, respecting them, for serving them, for building them up, for nurturing them, for doing everything I can for them. They belong to me. God has entrusted this person to me to care for in this way.” So let’s pray, oh God, please help us who are married to experience the fullness of this sense of belonging that you’ve designed for marriage, that we would realize, husbands and wives, that we belong to each other, that we would care for each other in this way, love each other, serve each other, support each other, encourage each other, build each other up, live for each other’s good, love each other selflessly, just like we see in Ephesians 5.
Song of Solomon 2:16 Reminds Us that Husbands and Wives are to Love One Another
Husbands love your wives as yourself, God help every husband who’s listening to this, to love his wife that way. Myself, at the top of that list, God help me to love my wife this way. And God, we pray for wives, that you would help them to love their husbands and respect their husbands, and enjoy and care for their husbands, as we see in Ephesians chapter 5 in ways that reflect this sense of belonging in Song of Solomon 2.
At the same time, oh God, I pray for the single brothers and sisters who long for this sense of belonging in marriage, who would desire that. And yet, at this moment, they are not in that marriage relationship and not having that sense of belonging. God, I pray for an extra measure of grace over them. That the belonging that each of us has in Christ would be even more precious to them.
This Verse Praises God because We Belong to Jesus
And God, we praise you for that reality, that we belong to you, Jesus, that you have taken responsibility for caring for us, nurturing us, providing for us, protecting us, leading us, guiding us, serving us, loving us. Oh God, we praise you that we belong to you. What a glorious picture, even that marriage illustrates. And so God, I pray that over single brothers and sisters, and I pray that over married brothers and sisters, that we would all have trusted in you, we’d have just a powerful sense that we belong to you and awareness of that.
And to live in that today, and to live to lead others to belong to you. God, right around us, we pray that you would help us to introduce people to relationship with you. Divine matchmaking. Instead of introducing a potential husband and wife, help us to introduce other people to you as the one who loves them and cares for them, and will save them from their sin and satisfy their soul forever.
This Verse Leads Us to Pray for the Serer People
God, we pray that for people right around us. Help us to be faithful in sharing the gospel today. And not just with people right around us, God. We pray for the Serer people of Congo, of the DRC, the Democratic Republic of Congo. God, we pray for this small people group, the Serer in the Congo. God, we pray for the spread of the gospel to them, that they might know they’re created for you, that they might enjoy you and belonging to you.
We praise you for this picture of belonging in marriage. For this picture of belonging in relationship with you. We pray that you would help us to experience it to the full, in marriage. For those who are husbands or wives, and ultimately in relationship with you. And to lead others to that in Jesus’ name, we pray according to Song of Solomon 2:16. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
