I sleep, but my heart is awakened; it is the voice of my beloved! (Song of Solomon 5:2)

In all likelihood, your spouse, more than anyone else in the world, is the person most likely to recognize you by the sound of your voice. Being the person most intimate with you, your spouse can easily discern your voice from the voice of others. It is their close communion with you that sharpens their senses to such a keen awareness of you.

As Christians, we need to enter into close communion with Christ in prayer. By becoming intimate with Christ in our prayer closets, we will sharpen our spiritual senses and enable ourselves to easily detect the voice of the Master from a multitude of others. With our spiritual senses fine-tuned by our fellowship with Christ, the least little whisper of the Spirit will make us keenly aware of the presence of the Savior.

It is no coincidence that Christ chose the marriage relationship, the most intimate of human relationships, to illustrate His relationship with us. It is intimacy with us that Christ seeks. Furthermore, it is a deepening intimacy with Him that should be our daily pursuit. As marital intimacy reaches its sublime heights in the privacy of the bedroom—where we become one with our spouse—spiritual intimacy reaches its sublime heights in the privacy of our prayer closets—where we become one with our Savior. 

“We are at this moment as close to God as we really choose to be. True, there are times when we would like to know a deeper intimacy, but when it comes to the point, we are not prepared to pay the price involved.” (J. Oswald Sanders)