Proverbs 7:15

Marshall Jenkins Proverbs 7:15

So now I have come out to meet you, to seek you eagerly, and I have found you!

No matter how lonely or unworthy you may feel, someone seeks you and rejoices to find you.

In this verse, the seeker wants what you have. Perhaps she wants your money, your body, or even your soul. She is a seductress, "decked out like a prostitute" (7:10), who has "perfumed her bed" (7:17), whose "husband is not at home" (7:19).

She is not unfamiliar. Many seek you for what you have. Many, like her, see you as someone with a price, valued by what you have. To such as her, what you have is who you are.

Moreover, she hopes you see yourself the same way. If you see yourself as the sum of what you have, then she knows you don't believe you have enough. She knows you feel a restlessness, an incompleteness in who you are because you cannot ever have enough to feel satisfied with yourself.

Feeling inadequate and incomplete, then you presumably feel unworthy of love. She offers a substitute that looks a great deal like love. Furthermore, she will treat you as if you "have" her, and you wonder for a moment - just long enough - if she might be the last possession you need to have enough, to complete yourself.

She is legion, and we have succumbed many times.

Do you believe you are who she thinks you are?

Lord, Seeker of my heart, show me who I am to you that I may resist finding my worth in anything less than your love. Amen.