THE NEXT RUNG – SONG, November 12, 2025

As Hup sat on the couch, Bible opened on his lap, his wife did her needlepoint.  “Where do we go from here Hup?” she asked as she deftly handled the needle. She didn’t look at him when she spoke. No, she concentrated on the work of her hands. Gracie settling down in her doggy bed.

Hup didn’t look at her when he answered. His focus was directed to the words written below, Song of Solomon, Chapter Two, verses 14 through 15.

“Where from here? I want to retreat, actually. It’s scary to give yourself to the Lord… knowing what needs to be done.”

“Scary? In what sense?” 

“Having the faith to wade into water so deep that you don’t know its depth, and all the while you know there’s the violent undertow of the flesh and the Devil to tempt if the flesh is – if it ever can be – momentarily mortified?”

“What are you saying?” 

“What am I saying? Only that I’ve been a sinner my entire life and most of those little foxes that need to be taken… put away… that spoil the vine are those that have made their nest in me, and now I come to the little… 

“Little? She asked, curious.

“Yes, the little ones Cordia.” He said her name.   

“Not the big ones?” Cordia asked.

“Too old for anything big. I don’t have the energy…. and yet… “

“And yet?” she asked. 

“Not to pump, but to seduce, huh?” He looked at her and smiled. “He’s calling me out of the clefts of the rocks… the secret places even unknown to myself. What is there to expose? This is a call that goes to the working the Holy Spirit, where I’ve hidden unconfessed sin beneath the very stairs that I need to climb to reach full maturity and the depth of intimacy that I desire.

“And those little foxes?”

“Oh, those will be driven out of those dark places and into the light. That is where I fear the next higher rung to distance myself higher above earth.”

“But we’ll be closer to heaven.” Cordia whispered. 

We… us, he thought. 

She continued, “We share the same rung Hup. That’s marriage in the sight of God, don’t you think? We share in those little foxes.”

Hup looked at his wife, and stood in awe of her.