Friday, September 25, 2009

What if God designed Marriage to make us Holy more than to make us happy?

Gary Thomas’s book Sacred Marriage explores the main idea of "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy (Thomas, 2000, 13)?" Thomas looks into the thoughts that although many people go into marriage thinking it will be easier to go through life with another person it turns out to be quite different than what is expected. He shows us the true sense of marriage, in that it involves two people coming together to go through life together, yet both of them are broken individuals. Married couples are reminded that they are sinful people in a broken world each day. All too often couples will run from their own struggles due to their own brokenness or the brokenness of their spouse. Love can quickly turn into hate and resentment which can just as quickly turn into divorce for some (Thomas, 2000, 13-16). All too often spouses expect something from their spouses that only God can give them. Thomas urges us to be careful not to expect too much from marriage. There is only something another sinner can do for us in a fallen world. This is where God fullness enters into our lives and fills us up. Thomas makes it known that each marriage has a purpose and perhaps it is not just to find happiness (Thomas, 2000, 25-26). Thomas believes that the suffering couples that endure during marriage can truly invite spiritual growth individually and in marriage (Thomas, 2000, 26).


I quickly found that when I got married that I too was believing that my husband would fill me up with love. I never thought in our pre-marital time that he would "complete me" or fill me up so I would now be complete. Yet for some reason when I got married I subconsciously was wondering why I was not filled just from my spouse. I would become increasingly disappointed in my husband and felt very unloved. It was an extremely lonely situation, until I realized how my thinking was not Biblical and certainly not me. I knew with all my heart that only one could fill me with complete unconditional love and that was God. I feel as though Christ gave me Justin, my husband, but not to complete me rather to be a helpmate. Somehow, perhaps due to romanticism, I thought he would make my world better or changed, but only one can do that as well. Christ is the only one to save me from suffering, that is simply not my husband’s role.

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