Sacred Marriage (Ch. 1)

I'm in a blogging Bible study on the book Sacred Marriage. We're all reading a chapter every couple of weeks and blogging about it. I've read this book before, but I think it was during our engagement so I have a very different perspective now. Here are my thoughts on chapter 1.

The point of the book is that marriage isn't about becoming happy, but becoming holy. That like solitude for hermits, marriage can be a spiritual discipline that shapes us into the image of Christ. On page 21, Gary Thomas says, "If you want to become more like Jesus, I can't imagine any better thing to do than get married. Being married forces you to face some character issues you'd never have to face otherwise." He later talks about immorality like selfishness, anger, control-mongering, and hatred, that can be revealed through the marriage relationship.

In my first reading of the book, I wrote near this section: "True...I've really had to become a lot less selfish and I've learned a lot about my weaknesses." But here's my problem...I think I stopped. I may have learned that in the beginning. But somewhere along the line I think I decided I was good enough as a person. And sure, I could do things to be a more romantic wife, but I didn't need to grow in those spiritual areas. At least not through marriage. It's so not true, but somehow I've convinced myself of that.

And since I convinced myself of that, I think I convinced myself that I am inherently loveable, so it shouldn't be hard for Dan to love me. But just after reading this, I sang a song in church that said, "God, I'm amazed by you...How you love me." And I thought...God's love is amazing because I'm not inherently loveable. It's quite a feat for him to love me, actually. I was expecting Dan to love me like God does, forgetting what a feat that is. And this line from the book struck me: "But my wife can't be God, and I was created with a spirit that craves God. Anything less than God, and I'll feel an ache."

I'm excited to keep reading because this isn't a marriage how-to book. It's a book to help me see marriage as a tool to help me grow closer to God and reflect his character. Because as Thomas writes on page 24, "...what [we] crave more than anything else is to be intimately close to the God who made us. If that relationship is right, we won't make such severe demands on our marriage...expecting each other to compensate for spiritual emptiness."