They made me caretaker of the vineyards, But I have not taken care of my own vineyard. – Song of Songs 1:6

We have arrived at the third of three disasters that have presented themselves in quick succession to our Maiden. Keep in mind – our paradigm is that the Maiden is an individual, passionate, and at this point in the story, newly ignited, Christ-follower.

Disaster one – she looked in the mirror and did not see what He saw. In the light of His glory and grace, she felt dirty.

Disaster two – she ran into the men and women of the bucket brigade who were put off by her passion and zeal and did what they could to dampen her spirit.

Today we find that our young maiden is thrust directly into ministry. I hinted at this in an earlier post, but today we see the fruit of too much ministry and not enough intimacy.

Does this sound like anyone you know? (Check the bathroom – they might be in the medicine cabinet looking out.)

• Every time the Church doors are open they are there.
• They volunteer for everything in the bulletin:
• Nursery work
• Set up and tear down after the pot luck
• Teaching Sunday School
• Chaperoning the Sr. High retreat
• Painting and Maintenance day
• Spring cleanup
• Leaf raking
• Filling the communion cups
• Cleaning up the communion cups
• Dusting the pews Bibles (you wouldn’t want dusty pews Bibles would you?)
• Collecting the artwork left behind by the little ones after church.
• She even signs up for creating sign up sheets.

Then there is the problem of what to do next week.

You get the point. She is immediately overworked, and what happens next? Her spirit begins to call out for God. She remembers her intimate encounter with the Lord, and thinks “This is not what I signed up for.”

Her vineyard goes uncared-for and begins to show signs of neglect.

Those who should be stoking her up and feeding her passion, are actually (and I assure you this is unintentional) drawing her away from what makes her so valuable to the Body of Christ – her connection to the Head.

In the song, her vineyard or garden is her personal spiritual life.

We (maidens) must make our own relationship with the Lover of our Soul of paramount importance in our lives.

We (church leaders) must make ‘How to love God well’ a major part of instruction for young believers, and we must guard against allowing anyone to become over-committed to program.

The first time I taught through this Song in a Sunday School setting when we came to this point, there was a couple in the class who had been working with pre-k children in the Sunday School program since their college student had been pre-k.

They were so hungry, and their own vineyards had been neglected over the years. Don’t get me wrong. They were not backslidden or anything like that. They were just desperate for some teaching that didn’t involve crayons. They craved something to dig their teeth into, which would help them tend to their spiritual lives. And they needed someone to encourage them to get up close to their Soul Lover.

What can you do? Or more importantly, what can you stop doing so that you can press into the Lord’s presence and tend to your own vineyard.

Thanks for stopping in today.

See you next week.

Ben