This post on Sacred Marriage: The Greatest Challenge in the World was written by Jeffrey Chen. Jeffrey has a passion for sharing God’s love with those around him. He blogs at The Wayvy Life.
Hey everybody! I am excited to announce that as part of a continuation on my series on relationships, I am going to be blogging about a book over the next couple of months. The book is called “Sacred Marriage” by Gary Thomas. I have just started reading it, and hope you join me on the journey as I seek to grow in my knowledge as a future Marriage and Family Therapist. I will be blogging about it one chapter at a time (there are fourteen chapters total), so we will be taking it nice and slow!
The first chapter is called “The Greatest Challenge In the World: A Call to Holiness More Than Happiness”. It serves as an introduction and sets the stage for the rest of the book. Thomas makes it clear from the start that this book is not about tips and tricks to a happier marriage. Instead, he seeks to talk about marriage in a very different way. As Thomas writes, “This book 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.”
So, while the focus on this book is certainly on marriage, it is more so on how you can grow spiritually through marriage. While our motivations to get married are or may have been selfish, it is actually an opportunity to be tremendously selfless. Through marriage, we are committing to loving and caring for another person even when it is not easy or fun to do so. For every single day. For the rest of our lives. That is a huge commitment. Imagine doing the same for your job. People would think you are crazy. You may stay on the same career path, but not the same job! And eventually you want to retire!
However there are no promotions, or career changes, or retirement from marriage. You are with the same person day in and day out until you die. And while that may sound scary and difficult (because it is), it also is an amazing opportunity to grow closer to God. To serve another child of God. To show another person a glimpse of what God’s love looks like in terms of grace, support, and sacrifice. You can glorify God in wonderful ways through marriage. I hope that is exciting to you. That is what this book is about. Please join me on this journey of discovering just how we can become more like Jesus through marriage, or even through other close relationships.
As always, please feel free to reach out to me for feedback, questions, suggestions on topics, or anything else. I’m happy to chat about anything and everything. I hope you could take away something helpful from this post. You can reach me at thewayvylife@gmail.com!
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