I read Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?, written by Gary Thomas, back in September. I read through the whole book quickly on my own, then have been slowly working through one chapter at a time with some friends, a group of ladies whose marriages range from solid to rocky and who all want their marriages to become stronger over time.
No author is perfect and everyone is bound to disagree with something in a book they read, but this book is filled with excellent things to consider. It challenges me as a wife to do the right things and to have the right attitudes. I'm a work in progress, no doubt about it, but we all are. Right?
I thought that writing out several of the things I'd underlined in the book would help them to stick in my brain a little easier and, perhaps, help me see improvement a little sooner in some of the areas I'm not doing so well with. If I'm going to take the time to write them out, I may as well share them with all of you.
Though the book is written from a Christian perspective, I think my non-Christian friends will themselves encouraged and challenged by many of the ideas presented. And though it's written about marriage, I think many of the concepts in the book can also be applied to our relationships with other people.
Without further ado, here are several of the quotes that stood out to me in the first five chapters. Here we go!
p.17, If we find that the same kinds of challenges face every marriage, we might assume that God designed a purpose in this challenge that transcends something as illusory as happiness.
p. 31, As long as a couple is married, they continue to display - however imperfectly - the ongoing commitment between Christ and his church. Thus, simply "sticking it out" becomes vitally important.
p. 32, If I believe the primary purpose of marriage is to model God's love for his church, I will enter this relationship and maintain it with an entirely new motivation, one hinted at by Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians: "So we make it our goal to please him" (2 Corinthians 5:9).
p. 34, Everything I am to say and do in my life is to be supportive of this gospel of ministry of reconciliation in my personal relationships, especially in my marriage. If my marriage contradicts my message, I have sabotaged the goal of my life: to be pleasing to Christ and to faithfully fulfill the ministry of reconciliation, proclaiming to the world the good news that we can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ.
p. 35 He lists the following divorce rate statistics, which I find disturbing: non-believers = 23%, self-described "born again" Christians = 27%, and those who consider themselves "fundamentalist Christian" = 30%
p. 36, And how can I proclaim reconciliation (with God through Jesus) when I seek dissolution (in marriage)?
p. 40, Marriage can be the gym in which our capacity to experience and express God's love is strengthened and further developed.
p. 42, In the marriage context, we have absolutely no excuse. God lets us choose whom we're going to love. Because we get the choice and then find it difficult to carry out the love in practice, what grounds do have to ever stop loving? God doesn't command us to get married; he offers it to us as an opportunity. Once we enter the marriage relationship, we cannot love God without loving our spouse as well.
p. 42, Yes, this spouse might be difficult to love at times, but that's what marriage is for - to teach us how to love.
p. 43, While our society has become expert in self-care, we seemingly have lost the art of caring for others. Sacrifice has taken on such negative connotations that people fear being a "codependent" more than they fear being perceived as selfish.
p. 45, (quoting Brady Bobbink on the topic of Christian service) To fail to love my wife and kids rightly in the name of loving other people rightly is a sham.
p. 57, Giving respect is an obligation, not a favor; it is an act of maturity, birthed in a profound understanding of God's good grace.
p. 67, Contempt is conceived with expectations. Respect is conceived with expressions of gratitude. We can choose which one will will obsess over - expectations, or thanksgivings. That choice will result in a birth - and the child will be named either contempt, or respect.
p. 76, In fact, much Christian teaching has gotten it exactly backwards. We're told that if we want to have a stronger marriage, we should improve our prayer lives. But Peter tells us that we should improve our marriages so that we can improve our prayer lives.
p. 77, Godliness is selflessness, and when a man and woman marry, they are pledging to stop viewing themselves as individuals and start viewing themselves as a unit, as a couple.
p. 82, Dissension is a major prayer-killer. Looked at from this perspective, the institution of marriage is designed to force us to become reconcilers.
Here are the other Sacred Marriage posts. Two. Three.
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