Thomas - Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?

For Lisa

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First, Id like to thank all those who contributed their stories to this effort. Because some of you want to remain anonymous for your own reasons, and the publishers lawyers want others of you to remain anonymous for their reasons, I cant thank each one of you individually, but I am deeply grateful.

Ive been extremely well-served by Zondervan in writing this book. John Sloan did a marvelous job keeping the book on focus and well-structured. Dirk Buursma provided one of the most satisfying copy-editing experiences Ive ever had. His gift at directing me toward a more precise word and his determination to still preserve my voice were greatly appreciated. Marketing director John Topliff has been a tremendous encouragement as well.

Id also like to thank Scott Waxman, my agent, for providing the introduction to Zondervan; Rob and Jill Takemura for their friendshipboth practical and spiritual (I dont know how Lisa and I coped when we didnt live within half a block of you guys); Dr. Bob Stone, my pastor, whose encouragement and teaching continue to inspire and challenge me; Carolyn McCulley of PDI, whose referrals, introductions, and friendship are greatly appreciated; Gene Breitenbach, for his insightful comments and patience with a non-techie writer trying to survive in a world that is being increasingly overrun by the Internet; and my childrenAllison, Graham, and Kelseyfor the laughter, the hugs, the prayers, and your comments that light up my life (and for letting some of your stories entertain others).

Finally, this book has been lived out with a woman beyond compare. I have tested her and been tested by her; I have sinned against her and sought her forgiveness; I have laughed with her, cried with her, prayed with her, and conceived children with her. Lisa, I adore you more every day. I cant imagine life without you. Thank you for sharing this life with me. Your personality has put the celebration in our marriage; your faith has made it sacred. You are truly a treasure.

CONTENTS

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ONE

THE GREATEST CHALLENGE IN

THE WORLD

A CALL TO HOLINESS MORE THAN HAPPINESS

By all means marry. If you get a good wife, youll become happy.

If you get a bad one, youll become a philosopher.

Socrates

Like everything which is not the involuntary result

of fleeting emotion but the creation of time and will,

any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely

more interesting than any romance, however passionate.

W. H. Auden

Im going to cut him open.

Historians arent sure who the first physician was who followed through on this thought, but the practice revolutionized medicine.

The willingness to cut into a corpse, peel back the skin, pull a scalp off a skull, cut through the bone, and actually remove, examine, and chart the organs that lay within was a crucial first step in finding out how the human body really works.

For thousands of years physicians had speculated on what went on inside a human body, but there was a reluctance and even an abhorrence to actually dissect a cadaver. Some men refrained out of religious conviction; others just couldnt get over the eeriness of cutting away a human rib cage. While an occasional brave soul ventured inside a dead body, it wasnt until the Renaissance period (roughly the fourteenth to the sixteenth century) that European doctors routinely started to cut people open.

And when they did, former misconceptions collapsed. In the sixteenth century, Andreas Vesalius was granted a ready supply of criminals corpses, allowing him to definitively contradict assumptions about the human anatomy that had been unquestioned for a thousand years or more. Vesaliuss anatomical charts became invaluable, but he couldnt have drawn the charts unless he was first willing to make the cut.

I want to do a similar thing in this bookwith a spiritual twist.

Were going to cut open numerous marriages, dissect them, find out whats really going on, and then explore how we can gain spiritual meaning, depth, and growth from

the challenges that lie within.

This is a book that looks

at how we can use the

Were not after simple answers

challenges, joys, struggles,

three steps to more intimate com

and celebrations of

munication, six steps to a more

exciting love lifebecause this

marriage to draw closer

isnt a book that seeks to tell you

to God and to grow in

how to have a happier marriage.

Christian character.

This is a book that 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.

Were after what a great Christian writer, Francis de Sales, wrote about in the seventeenth century. Because de Sales was a gifted spiritual director, people often corresponded with him about their spiritual concerns. One woman wrote in great distress, torn because she very much wanted to get married while a friend was encouraging her to remain single, insisting that it would be more holy for her 12 Sacred Marriage to care for her father, and then devote herself as a celibate to God after her father died.

De Sales put the troubled young woman at ease, telling her that, far from being a compromise, in one sense, marriage might be the toughest ministry she could ever undertake. The state of marriage is one that requires more virtue and constancy than any other, he wrote. It is a perpetual exercise of mortification.... From this thyme plant, in spite of the bitter nature of its juice, you may be able to draw and make the honey of a holy life.1

Notice that de Sales talks about the occasionally bitter nature of marriages juice. To spiritually benefit from marriage, we have to be honest. We have to look at our disappointments, own up to our ugly attitudes, and confront our selfishness. We also have to rid ourselves of the notion that the difficulties of marriage can be overcome if we simply pray harder or learn a few simple principles.

Most of us have discovered that

these simple steps work only on

What if God designed

a superficial level. Why is this?

marriage to make us holy

Because theres a deeper question

more than to make us happy?

that needs to be addressed beyond

how we can improve our marriage: What if God didnt design marriage to be easier? What if God had an end in mind that went beyond our happiness, our comfort, and our desire to be infatuated and happy as if the world were a perfect place?

What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy? What if, as de Sales hints, we are to accept the bitter juice

because out of it we may learn to draw the resources we need with which to make the honey of a holy life?

Romanticisms Ruse

If this sounds like a radically different view of marriage, its important to remember that the very concept of romantic love, which is so celebrated in movies, songs, and cheap paperbacks, was virtually unknown to the ancients. There were exceptionsone need merely The Greatest Challenge in the World 13

read the Song of Songs, for instancebut taken as a whole, the concept that marriage should involve passion and fulfillment and excitement is a relatively recent development on the scale of human history, making its popular entry toward the end of the eleventh century.2