Sacred Marriage: Chapter 3

It’s about that time again, actually even a day late, for chapter 3 of Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. This chapter is all about learning to love and how marriage teaches us how to do so. This chapter really challenged me and hit home.

Matthew 22:34-40 tells us that the most important things we must do is to love God AND love each other. This book talked about how marriage is the perfect place for us to learn how to love everyone. Marriage puts us in such close proximity to our spouse that we see all of their flaws and we still continue to love them and live our daily lives with them. “All Christians are God’s children; by loving others, we bring enormous pleasure to our heavenly Father.” This means our spouse, too. We aren’t called to show them love when they deserve it, earn it, or are doing what we feel like they should be doing. We owe all Christians our love no matter what.

Jesse and I struggle with this A LOT. I can say that we both love each other deeply and even madly, we don’t struggle with the feelings, we struggle with the actions. We both have a hard time showing our love for each other through our words and actions when we are not happen with what the other one is doing. We are both pretty strong minded people and tend to speak most things we are thinking or feeling. On one hand, I love our honesty with each other, but on the other, I know that we should be doing so in a more nurturing and caring way. Sometimes we both come across as more critical than caring. This is not right. “Love is patient, love is kind….” We both struggle with holding each other accountable in this patient and kind manner.

“Allow your marriage relationship to stretch your love and to enlarge your capacity for love – to teach you to be a Christian.” I love this challenge and call to our Christian duty. It is not a choice for Christians to show their spouse love and kindness, it’s what we are supposed to do. I also really liked that the book talked about not only showing our spouse love through spiritual means, but also trying to please them with “earthly” pleasures. When we go out of our way to please our spouse, it pleases God. That can look so different in so many different marriages. In mine, that may mean not complaining about Jesse leaving to go hunting for the weekend, packing his lunch, or doing the “maritals” even when I’m not in the mood. ;) In doing so, I’m not only pleasing Jesse, but most importantly, I’m pleasing my Savior and Creator.

I am going to accept this chapter as a personal challenge.

Sacred Marriage: Chapter 2

I left out some details of the group that I joined up with, last time I blogged about the first chapter of Sacred Marriage. Jennifer over at Knee Keep in Munchkin Land, is hosting this book study for more than thirty of us women. We are doing a chapter every other week for 26 weeks, and sharing our insights through our blog posts. Go check out Jennifer’s site, if you’d like to find other bloggers posts dedicated to this book study.

I love that this chapter really focused on the fact that our God is a God of reconciliation. I know that I often look at myself and how often I fail miserably in bringing glory to God…and he still forgives me and reconciles with me. Shouldn’t we try to be more Christ-like in our marriages? Our Father does not keep a record of all the times we have “wronged” him, and maybe we should try our best to do the same in our marriages. This is a hard one for me, but one that I strive to be better about. When we forgive one another, we bring joy to our Father. And the purpose of marriage is more about doing that than bringing joy to ourselves or even to each other.

“In a man-centered view, we will maintain our marriage as long as our earthly comforts, desires, and expectations are met. In a God-centered view, we preserve our marriage because it brings glory to God and points a sinful world to a reconciling Creator.”



It’s also pointed out that keeping a Christian marriage together is a duty, not a choice. I get it, marriage is hard, but the number one purpose of our marriage needs to come first. We cannot call a marriage a Christian one and just hope that it’s what it turns out to be, it's got to be in the forefronts of our minds. We have to live it and it’s HARD! Jesse and I both really struggle with this. This is constantly on my mind during disagreements… I think to myself “Are my reactions and words Christ based, or Stephanie based?” Ehhh, unfortunately 90% of the time I am ashamed of the answer to my question, and then I am again humbled by God's grace and reconcilation with me.