flame

CHAPTER SIX

Catch the Little Foxes

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“When we were in premarital counseling, our pastor asked each of us to list five habits or personality traits that we found annoying about the other person. I stared at my blank piece of paper for a long time and finally said, ‘Honestly, nothing about Kevin annoys me.’ Our pastor laughed: ‘By this time next year you’ll need a notebook to list everything.’ My delusion must have been solid because even three years into our marriage, I could name only a few things about my husband that bugged me. However, by year ten, my grievance list had grown, primarily due to the stress of managing two kids, a demanding job, a monstrous mortgage, and an incontinent cat. These made me irritable and zapped my strength, leaving little energy for my husband —or for sex.”

Every couple wishes that the romance and the starry-eyed love could last forever. But at some point, every husband and wife must cross the invisible line between fantasy love and real life, where the majority of a marriage is lived out. Tirzah and Solomon cross that line as problems threaten to erode their intimacy.

UNDERSTANDING THE SONG

Tirzah: “Listen! My beloved! Behold, he is coming, climbing on the mountains, leaping on the hills!” (2:8)

Tirzah’s excitement punctuates her sentences, as evidenced by the three exclamation marks in this verse. Her lover is coming! And he is not leisurely walking; he is leaping and bounding over hills. So committed is Solomon to reaching Tirzah, so willing to work hard to overcome all obstacles in his path, he’ll even scale mountains to meet with her.

Tirzah: “My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, he is standing behind our wall, he is looking through the windows, he is peering through the lattice.” (verse 9)

Gazelles and stags suggest swiftness and often symbolize sexual virility; gazelles also evoke an image of beauty in form and movement. Tirzah says, “My beloved is filled with beauty in his body, in the way he looks and the way he moves.” When her lover finally arrives, he beckons to her through the window to join him in the lovely outdoors.

Tirzah: “My beloved responded and said to me,

Solomon: ‘Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers have already appeared in the land; the time has arrived for pruning the vines, and the voice of the turtledove has been heard in our land. The fig tree has ripened its figs, and the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance. Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along!’” (verses 10-13)

Tirzah then recalls Solomon’s words. He begins and ends his plea with the same passion-filled phrase, calling her his darling (the Hebrew word here is dod, which means lover and has sexual connotations) and his beautiful one. He begs her to come to him —and quickly. As a way of enticing her to leave the warm protection and comfort of home, he paints a joyful, welcoming picture of springtime, “the universal time for love: warmer weather, the fragrance of flowers —a time to go outside, a time for the removal of clothes and intimacy.”[1] The message is, “Come to me, my love. Springtime is for loving.”

Solomon to Tirzah: “O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret place of the steep pathway, let me see your form, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet, and your form is lovely.” (verse 14)

Earlier Tirzah listened for her lover. Now he listens for her, longing to hear her sweet voice and see her lovely face, eyes, hair, smile, and body. The implication is that he desires to touch all that he longs to see.

Tirzah to Solomon: “Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that are ruining the vineyards, while our vineyards are in blossom.” (verse 15)

Most interpreters agree that the vineyards in this verse represent Solomon and Tirzah’s love, which is in full bloom. Everything seems perfect, except that Tirzah spies some little foxes in their vineyard and warns Solomon of their presence. While seemingly harmless at only fifteen inches tall, these foxes dug holes and passages that loosened the soil around the vines, preventing them from developing a stable root system. Proverbial symbols of destroyers,[2] the little foxes in this passage seem to symbolize the small problems that gnaw at the root of their love. Tirzah sees the problems first and asks Solomon to “catch them,” or help work out the small problems that threaten to hinder their love.

Tirzah: “My beloved is mine, and I am his; he pastures his flock among the lilies. Until the cool of day when the shadows flee away, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bether.” (verses 16-17)

Tirzah beautifully affirms her joy in belonging to Solomon. She tells him to act swiftly and sensuously, like a gazelle or young stag on the mountains of Bether. Because no one knows of such a place, commentators differ on their interpretations of what is meant by this reference. Some suggest that these mountains are a symbol of the woman herself.[3] Others say that the mountains of Bether means “hills of separation” and is a reference to Tirzah’s breasts.[4] The root of the word Bether is the verb batar and means “to cut in pieces”[5] or “to cut in two.”[6] This has led others to suggest that the mountains refer to her cleavage and that she is inviting Solomon to play with her breasts,[7] or possibly with her vagina, the other moundlike erogenous zone that is “divided.”[8]

Whatever the exact meaning of “mountains of Bether,” the lovers’ previous game of “Find me” has been replaced by the game of “Love me.”

APPLYING THE SONG FOR COUPLES

God wired men and women differently. It’s almost as if He installed in women an internal alarm that goes off whenever problems threaten a relationship. Beep. Beep. Beep. Tirzah’s alarm sounds, and she tells her husband, “We’ve got problems. Can’t you see those little foxes? They are going to ruin everything for us. Do something about this.” Solomon, normally a sensitive husband, gives no indication that he sees the foxes. He does not hear an alarm, so he feels no urgency. Tirzah and Solomon remind us of many couples we know.

Here is a typical drill:

Wife to husband (with alarm beeping in her head): “Honey, we have a problem. Please, let’s get help.”

Husband (who hears nothing): “You’re just emotional right now because it’s that time of the month. Wait a few days, and things will look better.”

Five days later, another blowup.

Wife to husband (with alarm shrieking): “Please! We’ve got to get help now! Can’t we see a counselor or talk to our pastor about this?”

Husband (who is alarm-deaf): “You are overreacting. We don’t need help. We just need more _____________________________ ” (fill in the blank: prayer, patience, self-control, trust).

What happens when a couple continues to ignore the alarm? If they allow the foxes to multiply and take over, one day they wake up and find themselves in a mess. Just ask Bruce and Chrissy. They had been married for twenty years. During that time, numerous foxes had crept into their marriage. Chrissy repeatedly asked Bruce if they could go together to see a counselor. Each time, he refused, saying, “We can work things out on our own.” One day they received a call from the high school principal, who told them their teenage son had been suspended from school on serious charges.

As things unfolded, it became clear that their son’s problems were directly related to problems in their marriage. Their family was falling apart, and this time, Bruce couldn’t deny it. When he finally told Chrissy, “Call that counselor you’ve been wanting us to go to —we need help,” relief flooded her. At last they were getting help, and with help came hope. Guess what was lying in their front yard the day of their first counseling appointment? A dead fox. (Seriously —we did not make this up!)

Watch Out for the Foxes

All marriages have foxes. Often the wife sees the foxes first because of her inborn alarm system, but men see foxes too. Some men cite sex as a fox, so they are grateful for this book that helps to ignite intimacy. Which foxes pester you?

Are your foxes related to people or circumstances?

Or are your foxes related to attitudes and emotions?

We must catch the foxes that gnaw at the root of our love because if we don’t, they will destroy our desire for sexual intimacy. A 2003 cover of Newsweek shows a husband and wife in bed, dressed in full-length pajamas.[9] He stares blankly at a computer on his lap while she shovels spoonfuls of Häagen-Dazs into her mouth with a zoned-out look on her face. A blaring headline reads: “No Sex, Please, We’re Married.” The subtitle asks, “Are Stress, Kids and Work Killing Romance?”

The answer? Yes! Stress is eating us alive. One couple quipped that because stressed spelled backward is desserts, they reverse stress by eating lots of chocolate.

Resources for Capturing the Foxes

Hey, if chocolate works for you (and it certainly has proven effective for the four of us), go ahead and pop a few Milk Duds. As you savor the flavor, let’s consider the impact of the “foxes” mentioned in the Newsweek article —work and kids —because these are two of the most common intimacy killers for married couples.

CATCH THE FOX OF WORK

Work, work, work. A study conducted by the International Labor Organization (ILO) discovered that “Americans added nearly a full week to their work year during the 1990s,” and this trend continues, leaving Americans with less personal time than in the past.[10]

John works seventy-five hours a week under the guise of providing for his family. Amy’s request for him to spend more time at home unleashes strong emotion in them both. He is angry: “Doesn’t she understand the pressure I’m under?” She is despondent: “Doesn’t he see that he’s becoming a stranger to me?”

Men are not the only ones who suffer from overwork. Lynne is a stay-at-home mom. She homeschools five children, manages the household, teaches Sunday school, and sells cosmetics on the side. If you asked Lynne, “How is your sex life?” she’d answer, “Sex —what’s that?” Researcher Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin points out that

we’ve had this kind of myth —this rosy view of homemakers that they kind of sit around and relax all day when in fact, they’re working very hard, and they experience sex problems in their marriage. They experience fatigue and so do women who are employed full-time.[11]

It used to be that every year, Americans took a vacation. They retreated to a quaint cabin (with no television) by a mountain lake, where they sipped lemonade, listened to the katydids chirp, and enjoyed the chance to get away from the phone and their daily routine. These days, instead of getting away, we take it all with us. On our last vacation, we each took a cell phone and a laptop. Count it up —between us, five days away with four cell phones and four laptops. God forbid that we should miss an urgent message related to work! We punch a series of numbers or letters and are instantly connected to friends, family, and coworkers. Unfortunately, constant connections with the outside world can leave us disconnected from our mates.

Do the two of you feel overworked? When was the last time you had a long, relaxing lovemaking encounter? Consider how wonderful it would be to soak in the tub together by candlelight, freely enjoying each other with no thoughts about your responsibilities and commitments. One couple admitted that because they were both self-employed, they had not been away together in four years.

In a moment, we’ll look at how it’s possible to recapture intimacy when work has consumed your life, but first let’s look at the other fox —kids —and how it can cripple your sex life.

CATCH THE FOX OF KIDS

First you married; then you had kids. Problems surface when couples reverse this order. We best serve our kids when we make our marriage our first priority. Children, while gifts from God and a source of great joy to parents, require constant care, resulting in diminished opportunities for intimacy. Cassie told us,

I’ve got three preschoolers. I’m so exhausted from kids pulling on me all day that by bedtime, I can hardly move. Then my husband wants sex, and he wonders why I’m irritated. The last thing I need is another person pulling on my worn-out body.

As someone once said, “Sex makes little kids. Kids make little sex.” Comedian Ray Romano, who has four kids, says, “After kids, everything changes. We’re having sex about every three months. If I have sex, I know my quarterly estimated taxes must be due. And if it’s multi-orgasmic sex, I know it’s time to renew my driver’s license.”[12]

We know that it’s not easy to keep intimacy alive when we have daily responsibilities. We understand what it’s like to have babies and toddlers and teenagers in the house. But don’t give up simply because it’s difficult. Jody and Linda tell of a time when persistence paid off:

Years ago, when our kids were preschoolers, we realized we needed some time alone together as a couple. After years of being pregnant and nursing, Linda was beyond exhausted, so we planned a weekend away. We secured a woman to stay with our children, prepared food for the kids to eat while we were gone, cleaned the house, and purchased gifts for the kids. Everything was in place —and then the babysitter got sick, so we cancelled our plans. A few months later, we tried again. We spent days getting every detail in place, and then Linda got sick. On our third attempt, we thought, Surely this time it will really happen, and the car broke down. Our attempts to be alone were just adding more stress to our already stressed-out lives, but we were determined to have some time together without any kids. On the fourth try, we actually had our weekend away, and it was glorious, worth fighting for in every way.

We must fight to have time together as a couple. In the last fifty years, our society has shifted from a marriage-oriented society to a kid-oriented society. The temptation to structure all activity and decisions around the children threatens marital oneness. Couples focus on their kids because they want to give them the best, but they fail to understand that what a child wants far more than a big-screen television is parents who love each other and are committed to each other. When the marriage is a priority, it makes for happier kids —and for happier parents.

So what do we do about the foxes of work and kids? How can we catch these foxes and recapture intimacy? We make our marriage our first priority.

Put Your Marriage First

Priorities are revealed through heart disposition and time distribution. You cannot say, “My marriage is the most important relationship in my life,” and never spend time with your spouse.

In our busy, stress-filled lives, we race from work to children to marriage, and in our race we end up putting out fires rather than living by priority. One couple described it this way:

We keep saying that we’ll find time for us —that next year will be better, the kids will be older, work commitments will be different. We’ve been saying these kinds of things for five years, and nothing has changed. We’ve finally realized that we must find time today, this week, not next year.

Perhaps part of the problem is our perspective. It isn’t about finding time; it’s about making time.

One researcher concluded that husbands and wives average as little as four minutes a day of meaningful conversation.[13] Four minutes? No wonder marriages are in trouble! Many couples invest less time in their relationship than they do in cooking a hard-boiled egg.

If you are like most people, one reason you have so little time for each other is because you stuff your calendar full of activities. Dennis Rainey, director of FamilyLife, admonishes,

If your day planner has a blinking NO VACANCY sign hanging on it, chances are good that everyone else in the home is running on turbo too. You need to examine every activity that takes you away from your spouse (and children) and determine if it is worth the cost. This applies even to ministry activities; we need to be involved in our church and be reaching out to others in our community, but not at the continual expense of our families.[14]

Do you spend only four minutes a day in meaningful conversation with each other? Does your calendar have a blinking NO VACANCY sign on it? We suggest you take the following test to help you determine if your marriage is suffering from low priority.

MARRIAGE MINUTES (MM) TEST[15]

Over a seven-day period, note the number of minutes you spend doing each of the following activities:

  1. ____ Talking with your spouse when no one else is around.
  2. ____ Discussing things related to just the two of you, excluding the kids, your parents, work, money, friends, or daily activities.
  3. ____ Spending time just looking at each other.
  4. ____ Having fun together, alone, in a mutually enjoyable activity.
  5. ____ Making love, kissing, hugging, or touching each other.
  6. ____ Talking about the future of your marriage, not about retirement funds, retirement homes, and insurance plans.
  7. ____ Discussing world events, politics, or issues of the day. This means two-way talking and listening.
  8. ____ Just sitting together doing the same thing or something different, such as reading, listening to music, sewing, and so on. Do not include television watching or computer time.
  9. ____ Eating together without interruptions (no kids, no phones).
  10. ____ Spending time in prayer, Bible reading, devotional reading, or worship together. Do not include religious services.

____ Total Marriage Minutes (MM)

Explanation: Estimated total number of Marriage Minutes (MM) available for relating to each other is 1,800 minutes, or thirty hours per week. Divide your total MM score by the 1,800 available minutes. For example, if you estimated your total MM to be 180, divide the 180 by 1,800 for an MM quotient. This would equate to 10 percent. If your score was near 10 percent, congratulations! In our overscheduled society, many couples don’t even rank above 5 percent.

This tool can give you an indication of where marriage and intimacy fall on your priority list. If marriage is low on your list, how do you go about changing that? How do you find time in a schedule that is already jam-packed? Here are our top ten suggestions for grabbing time to be alone together.

Top Ten Time Grabbers

1. Talk to God. If your heart is not right, you will dismiss even the best suggestions for how to spend more time with each other: “No, I don’t want to do that.” The place to begin to create time for your mate is to ask God to instill in you a deep desire to make your marriage a top priority. Next to God, your relationship with your spouse is your most important relationship. Pray to Him,

Father, thank You for my marriage. I confess that at times I’ve allowed many things to take priority over our relationship. Show me ways I can honor my spouse by expressing that no one is more important to me and that I will do whatever it takes for us to have time together.

2. Schedule time on your calendars. Sit down together with your calendars. Across the top of a piece of paper, write the name of each family member, making a column for each. Then list the activities associated with each person and how much time that activity takes each week. Be sure to include transportation time as well as time spent planning or preparing for the activity. Your goal is to review all of your current activities so that you can recover a minimum of two hours a week and one weekend a year that the two of you can devote to time alone together for the purpose of enhancing your marriage relationship. To accomplish this goal, you will need to eliminate or curtail certain activities on your list. Review each activity and ask these questions: Can this be eliminated from our schedule? If not, how can we minimize its drain on our time? Discuss how you can grab at least two hours a week to focus on each other, and mark out that time on your schedule. This will enable you to protect your marriage from the fox of overwork or overcommitment. We challenge you to use the extra Marriage Minutes to schedule one simple romantic encounter each month. See chapters 7 and 15 for specific instruction and practical ideas.

3. Interview an older couple. Invite one or two older couples whose marriages you respect over for dinner. Ask them questions such as: When you were younger, how did you keep your marriage a priority? How did you make time for romance and intimacy? What is your most memorable romantic time together? What suggestions do you have for us as a couple? Is there anything you would change about the priority you placed on your relationship? Their wisdom will inspire you to create Marriage Minutes together.

4. Brainstorm with couples your age. Organize a “Potluck with a Purpose” and invite couples who also want time together. Ask every couple to be prepared to share three creative things they have done to grab Marriage Minutes. Compile a master list and ask the couples if they are willing to meet every six months (or year) to update the list.

5. Fast from television for one week. We think you will be shocked how much time you will have for romance when you turn off the tube. Try it for one week and see the difference it makes in finding time to enjoy your intimacy.

6. Hire a babysitter. Don’t waste your babysitting dollars on going to see a movie. Instead, hire a sitter to take your kids to a park Saturday morning for two hours while you spend that time at home —in bed.

7. Arrange for a kid swap. Find a couple you trust who is willing to swap kids with you one evening a month. You take their kids from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m. the first month, and next month they watch yours. Three hours focused on loving each other can revitalize any marriage.

8. Schedule a motel date. When curious teenagers fill the house and won’t go to bed before midnight, it can short-circuit your love life. Leave your teens with a pizza and a good movie; pack a picnic basket filled with fun food, a CD player, candles, and scented lotion; and go to a motel from 5:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. You’ll be amazed at how much loving and talking you can do with no ringing phones! It’s not much more expensive than a nice dinner and a movie —and more fun!

9. Enjoy a daily devotional. Intimacy is about sex, but it is also about being emotionally and spiritually one with your mate. One of the ways to accomplish this is by praying and reading Scripture together. Set aside ten minutes every weekday morning. Use four of those days for your written devotion (we recommend Moments Together for Couples, by Dennis and Barbara Rainey). Use the fifth day as an intimate devotion, a time of loving each other in the shower or between the sheets.

10. Enjoy the Sabbath rest. God asks us to take a Sabbath rest. Our bodies were made for a day of rest once a week. We encourage you to work and do activities with your kids for six days and then take one day off —no work, no shopping, and no running to sports activities. Instead, set aside the entire day to worship God, take naps, rest, and play together. This is part of intimacy —finding rest in each other, lying in each other’s arms, and enjoying the closeness without the stress of life.

Look through the ten time grabbers and pick several that appeal to you. Then implement them.

We pray this chapter has spurred you on to stop, look, and listen to the warning signs of foxes in the vineyard of your marriage. Commit to God and each other to make your marriage a priority, and delight in the joy of your renewed intimate oneness.

SERVANT LOVERS:   Work to catch the little foxes that threaten their love.

SELFISH LOVERS:   Are unwilling to take the time and effort to work on problems.

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TIRZAH TO HERSELF:

“On my bed night after night I sought him

Whom my soul loves;

I sought him but did not find him.

‘I must arise now and go about the city;

In the streets and in the squares

I must seek him whom my soul loves.’

I sought him but did not find him.

The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me,

And I said, ‘Have you seen him whom my soul loves?’

Scarcely had I left them

When I found him whom my soul loves;

I held on to him and would not let him go

Until I had brought him to my mother’s house,

And into the room of her who conceived me.”

TIRZAH TO THE CHORUS:

“I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem,

By the gazelles or by the hinds of the field,

That you will not arouse or awaken my love

Until she pleases.”

SONG OF SOLOMON 3:1-5

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