The Nightmare Begins.
Her BELOVED seeks to join her in her room, but she lets him go away. She is too filled with her own comfort and her own delightfulness.
‘I was asleep, but my heart awoke, It is the voice of my beloved who knocks, saying, “Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled, For my head is filled with dew, My locks with the drops of the night.”
Lying asleep in her luxurious bed it was as though she was suddenly awoken by a knock on the door, although it was only her heart that awoke. And her heart leaped as she heard the voice of her beloved. But despite his sweet words she was not too impressed when she learned that he had just come in from seeing to his sheep, so that ‘his head was filled with dew, and his locks with the drops of the night'. In her dream she was back with her old shepherd lover. Why could he not wait until he was more ready to enter her bed? Surely he did not expect her to receive him like that? She had grown too used to comfort.
How easily our love for our Lord can slip in a similar way, so that when He comes to us to put us under some inconvenience we are unwilling. When we first became His we were delighted to do anything that He asked. But now we have become more choosy. Let Him wait until we are in a better frame of mind. We do not want to be involved with the discomforts of His watch over the sheep. We do not want to share the inconveniences and consequences of the night watch. Our love has grown cold.