I've been reading Sacred Marriage, by Gary Thomas, and it is awesome! I'd encourage everybody married or engaged or seriously dating to pick it up. My thoughts and actions and motivations have been very challenged - the tagline is "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" Here are a few of the many quotes that stood out:
"Contempt is conceived with expectations. Respect is conceived with expressions of gratitude. We can choose which one we will obsess over - expectations, or thanksgivings..."
"Instead of placing demands on your spouse, look to God to have your needs met. That way you can approach your spouse in a spirit of servanthood....marriage is a spotlight showing us that our search for another human being to 'complete' us is misguided....we should seek our significance, meaning, and purpose in our Creator rather than in another human being."
"The righteousness God seeks is a persistent righteousness, a commitment to continue making the right decision even when, perhaps hourly, you feel pulled in the opposite direction. Holiness is far more than an inclination toward occasional acts of kindness and charity. It is a commitment to persistent surrender before God."
"A heavyweight boxing champion who dodges all serious contenders to consistently fight marshmallows is derided and ridiculed - and rightly so. Christians who dodge all serious struggle and consciously seek to put themselves in whatever situations and relationships are easiest are doing the same thing - they are coasting, and eventually that coasting will define them and - even worse - shape them....It helps when we view our struggles in light of what they provide for us spiritually rather than in light of what they take from us emotionally."
"A Christian is never dependent on the response of others to grow spiritually. It's our own heart's decisions that matter."
1 comment:
You are such a great sisnlaw, squinto. I love you!
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