In 1881 Charles Fry wrote a hymn with this familiar refrain: “He’s the Lily of the Valley, the Bright and Morning Star, He’s the fairest of ten thousand to my soul.” The line, which also forms the title to the hymn, comes from the Song of Solomon. 2:1 says, “I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys.” Lilly of the valley and rose of Sharon have become titles for Christ because of this verse.
Many Christians take an allegorical approach to interpreting the Song of Songs. They say the poems contained therein exist only as a picture of the love God has for His people. Indeed, the Bible frequently uses the analogy of a marriage, with Jesus being the perfect groom, and the church collectively being the bride. I happen to believe the book is meant to be taken at face value—as a beautiful, at times erotic, expression of love between two real people, King Solomon and his first true love, the Shulamite.
With that said, I believe we also have latitude to take the love of this couple and use it to illustrate the way Jesus feels about us, and how we should feel about Him. H.A. Ironside said of the lily and rose analogy, “It is perfectly right and proper to apply all of these delightful figures to him; for any figure that speaks of that which is beautiful and of good report can be applied to the Lord[1].”
So since it is Valentine’s Day week, can we spend a minute thinking about how much God loves us? Song of Solomon 2:1-2 serve as a great depiction of this love. She speaks of herself in the first verse, saying she is a lily in the valley. Have you ever seen a field with just a single lily? If there is one lily, there are thousands more. Elizabeth Mulloy wrote, “She asks, Who am I? I am nothing special that the king would want to know me, hear my fears or share my dreams. I am just a common wild flower[2].”
You are one of seven billion people in the world, one lily among all the others in this valley called earth. How would God even know who you are, let alone care about you? But He does! Even the very hairs on your head are numbered (Matthew 10:30). It is natural for us to feel the way the Shulamite woman felt in this poem. Of all the lilies in this valley, why would you ever look my way? She becomes like her father-in-law David, who asked, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him Psalm 8:4)?”
But the king’s response in verse two is perfect. He takes her own words and turns them in such a way as to melt her heart. He replies, “As a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young women.” Daniel Akin paraphrased his response this way: “You are not just a flower among flowers, one of a million. No, you are one in a million, a beautiful wildflower among thorns[3].”
The king of Israel was saying, “When I look out into the valley, I don’t see fields of flowers. I see one beautiful lily standing out among thorns.” The phrase so is my love among the young women was his way of saying everyone else was just a thorn to him.
I am not saying that God views some of us as thorns. The point is that we can make the love of God personal. He loves you. He loves me. And there is plenty of love to go around. We do not settle for scraps of His attention, being evenly divided among all of the planet’s inhabitants. When God looks at you, you might as well be the only person in the universe, and He gazes upon you as if you were the only lily blooming in a field of thorns.
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