Sacred Influence (37 page)

5
. Ibid.

6
. Ibid., 95.

7
. These statistics are cited in Jerry Grimes, “Fighting the Battle against Pornography” (January 2005); on the Web at www .ciu.edu/seminary/resources/articles/life/dealing-w-porn ography_grimes.pdf.

8
. This and other comments from Mitch Whitman resulted from our discussion of the ideas in this book.

Chapter 16: John and Catherine: Finding Faith

1
. Account and quotes taken from George and Karen Grant,
Best Friends: The Extraordinary Relationships of Ordinary People
(Nashville: Cumberland, 1998).

2
. Ibid.,113.

Epilogue: Everlasting Beauty

1
. Cited in David McCullough,
John Adams
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2001), 168.

2
. Ibid., 172.

3
. Ibid.

4
. Ibid., 429.

5
. Ibid., 479.

6
. Ibid., 626.

Gary Thomas

F
eel free to contact Gary. Though he cannot respond personally to all correspondence, he would love to get your feedback. (Please understand, however, that he is neither qualified nor able to provide counsel via email):

Gary Thomas
P.O. Box 29417
Bellingham, WA 98228-1417
[email protected]

For information about Gary’s speaking schedule, visit his web-site (www.garythomas.com). To inquire about inviting Gary to your church, please write (using the above address) or call the Center for Evangelical Spirituality at 360-676-7773, or email his assistant:[email protected].

The Center for Evangelical Spirituality (CFES) is a ministry dedicated to fostering spiritual growth within the Christian community through an integrated study of Scripture, church history, and the Christian classics. We believe evangelical Christians can learn a great deal from historic Christian traditions without compromising the essential tenets of what it means to be an evangelical Christian. Accepting Scripture as our final and absolute authority, we seek to promote Christian growth and the refinement of an authentic Christian spirituality.

From Gary

Dear Readers,

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey. I hope you found it helpful. My sincere prayer is that you will have gained both significant insight into your husband’s heart and mind and renewed spiritual fervor for God.

Some of you might be wondering, “What should I do now?” I’d like to offer two suggestions. First, if you haven’t read
Sacred Marriage
, I encourage you and your husband to do so, as this book provides the foundational thought for what you’ve just read. In addition to providing stories of how women have learned to draw nearer to their God as they learned to love their husbands,
Sacred Marriage
can introduce your husband to some of these same concepts in a context that will challenge
him
.

Second, consider reading
Devotions for a Sacred Marriage
. By reading one devotional entry a week (preferably with your spouse), and doing so faithfully for a year, you can begin training your heart and mind to look at marriage through the perspective of how God is challenging you spiritually and personally. It takes time to retrain our minds to think biblically; I’ve worked hard to create a very practical tool for just this purpose. You’ll find a sample entry right after this letter.

May God bless you as you seek to serve him by becoming the woman he created you to be; and may God continue to make your marriage a truly sacred, soul-shaping union that reflects Christ’s love for the church.

The peace of Christ,
Gary Thomas

Sample devotion from
Devotions for a Sacred Marriage

27

Marriage Is Movement

Behold, I am coming soon!

Revelation 22:12

Lisa and I went to see the movie
Seabiscuit
with Rob and Jill, two of our closest friends. At the start of the movie, I sat by Rob and Lisa sat by Jill, so that Lisa and Jill could share the unbuttered popcorn and Rob and I could assault our arteries with the buttered kind. But halfway through the movie, Lisa had to get up for a moment, and Rob slipped over to sit by his wife.

There was something wonderfully refreshing in seeing a man who has been married for eighteen years still eager to sit by his wife for the last hour of a movie. That simple movement said a great deal about Rob and Jill’s marriage, and it personifies a biblical truth.

I heard of one wedding in which the
bridegroom
actually walked down the aisle instead of the bride, in order to capture the biblical picture of Christ—
the
bridegroom—going to his bride, the church. As Christ pursues the church, so the husband is to pursue his wife. (Note to future husbands: it’s the rare woman indeed who would even
consider
giving up that famous walk down the aisle; I wouldn’t recommend trying this at home!)

Marriage is more than a commitment; it is a movement toward someone. Husbands, are you still moving toward your wife? Or have you settled in, assuming you know her as well as she can be known, and thus turning your sights to other discoveries and challenges? Even worse, are you violating your vows with the “silent treatment” or a refusal to communicate?

Wives, are you moving toward your husband? Are you still pursuing him, seeking to get to know him, trying to draw closer to him? Have you considered new ways to please and pleasure him, or have you become stagnant in judgment, falling back to see if he’ll come after
you
?

Jesus moves toward us even in our sin; will we move toward our spouses even in theirs?

Movement is about more than communication; it’s about the force of our wills. Are we choosing to pursue greater intimacy in our relationship? Do we seek to resolve conflict, or do we push it aside, assuming it’s “not worth the hassle” while letting our love grow colder? Are we still trying to understand our spouses’ worlds—their temptations and trials, their frustrations and challenges—or are we too consumed with our own? Are we praying for our spouses, encouraging them to grow in grace and holiness, or are we tearing them down behind their backs, gossiping about them so that everyone will feel sorry for how difficult we have it?

Honestly ask yourself, “Do I know my spouse any better today than I did three years ago?” If not, maybe you’ve stopped moving toward your spouse. And if you’ve stopped moving toward your spouse, you’ve stopped being married in the fully biblical sense of the word.

This week, why not launch yourself on a new exploration—your spouse? Why not see what new things you can learn—how you can grow even closer to each other, how you can give up a little more independence and embrace a little more interdependence? Why not make a renewed attempt to study your spouse every bit as much as a biology student studies the movement of cells under a microscope or a seminary student pores over thick reference books late into the night?

So many people say the “excitement” has left their marriage. Well, exploration is one of the most exciting journeys known to humankind. Most of the globe has been mapped, many times over—but that person who wears your ring? There are still secrets yet unknown and yet to be explored on that side of the bed.

Get busy.