Sacred Marriage - Chapter One: The Greatest Challenge in the World

Tim wanted to have us both read "Sacred Marriage" by Gary Thomas. (It's actually one of the books that Pastor Sid recommended and spoke about in one of the first sermons that I heard him give.) We're going to try and do a chapter a day or every few days and then discuss it at night after Caleb goes to bed. I've only read the first chapter, but am hoping to write a little bit every day about the thoughts that are going through my head as I'm reading and learning.

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CHAPTER ONE: The Greatest Challenge in the World - A call to Holiness more than Happiness

"This is a book that looks at how we can use the challenges, joys, struggles, and celebrations of marriage to draw closer to God and to grow in Christian character." I agree that we should use all of our experiences in marriage to glorify God rather than to strive for our own personal happiness. Too often, we are selfish and only remember that God is there when times are tough or we need something. We expect that we should be happy all the time if we put our trust in God. The truth is that God is there in everything that we do; we should praise Him for the good and the bad. We should thank Him for all the blessings He has bestowed upon us. We should confess our sins and give our burdens to Him. We should love Him above all.

When I first started dating Tim, I was so infatuated with him during our puppy love sort of stage. I somehow knew that he was going to be "the one." I also thought that our relationship would always possess that beautiful, romantic love that would last forever. Since I've been married, I've realized that when people talk about the ups and downs of marriage, they were right. We're going to have days of utter happiness and days of complete misery and frustration. That puppy love that we had once isn't enough to keep a marriage going. We need the kind of love that we can only find by drawing closer to God. I laughed when I read this line from the book: "If the purpose of marriage was simply to enjoy an infatuation and make me "happy," then I'd have to get a "new" marriage every two or three years." Then I thought about it for a bit and realized how true that statement is. No wonder so many people get divorced!

Last year I started reading/doing the "Love Dare." It wasn't because I thought my marriage was in shambles and that we were leaning towards divorce. It was because I figured we had a good thing going for us and I knew it could only get better. One of the days, it asked the question, "Why do you love your spouse?" Like most people, I would respond with all the reasons that I love Tim. He's smart, funny, cute... he helps around the house... etc. However, if we have to have specific reasons to love our spouse, what will happen if they became an invalid? Would we love them less? Would we leave them? No, the answer lies much deeper than that. We should love our spouses just because, no reasons attached. God loves us infinitely more than we could ever fathom, yet that is the type of love that should sustain a marriage. By learning more about God and His love, we will be able to in turn use our marriage to make us holy and find ultimate happiness through God who lives in us.

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I had originally planned to basically summarize each chapter, but then started going on little rabbit trails in my head so figured I better just write it all out. Hopefully it made sense to someone other than just myself. :-)