No matter what culture says, there
is no doubt that marriage is an important foundation of society. Regardless of race, religion, political, or
social background marriage exists and has existed in every society that we know
of from the ancient Egyptians to every country in the world today. Yet marriage is also greatly under assault. Much of this is due to how we treat marriage;
the proliferation of no fault divorce and adultery are just some examples of
how we continue to attack this foundation.
I have been married for almost eleven
years now and know with how little regard I have treated my marriage. Although, through the power of Christ, I have
made many strides to restore my marriage, and to again build upon a Biblical
foundation there is no doubt that with the attacks I have leveled against my
marriage I needed some guidance and insight into what I can do better. Recently I received the opportunity to begin
book reviews for another publishing house, New Growth Press, and this review will
focus on a book I received from them, Marriage
Matters: extraordinary change through ordinary moments by Winston T. Smith.
Until recently I have never been a
fan of marriage books, yet as I have been growing in my relationship with my
wife it was a marriage book that ultimately helped me realize that I was no
doing all that I could. Just prior to our middle daughter being born Jen and I
got to take part in a couple study on Love
and Respect. This book was the
beginning of turning me around in how I loved and treated my wife. This does not mean I still have not struggled
on loving her like I need to, but I began to see things that made sense to
me. When I saw Marriage Matters as one of the options for review, I decided to
take a look at another marriage book to see what else I might learn.
Smith starts off this book with
sharing a personal story about his own marriage. In brief summary he felt that his wife was
not keeping his needs in perspective as she went out on a Saturday morning and
early afternoon with her friends. This
particular day was a busy day, as any parents of two or more children can
imagine. He explains how one had to get
to baseball practice, the other had to go to a birthday party, and Smith was
trying to prepare for a Bible study that evening (Smith 2010). How many of us have been in a similar
circumstance? We know that there are
things we need to do, but our spouse is not home, or is tied up doing
something. Suddenly we do not care
whether or not what they are doing is important after all they are messing with
a schedule we had already agreed upon. I
know I have fallen into this cycle myself many times. Smith describes these as the ordinary moments (Smith 2010).
In these ordinary moments we often
time questions the love our spouse has for us.
In all reality though we are not showing love to our spouse. Instead we are thinking about ourselves, and
the impact their supposed self-centeredness had on what we needed to accomplish. We begin to treat our spouse in an unloving
manner, either getting angry or withdrawing into ourselves. Smith quotes from 1 John 4:7-12 as he begins
to get into the meat of chapter 1.
Dear friends,
let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has
been born of God and knows God. The one
who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was reveled among us in this way:
God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through
Him. Love consists in this: not that we
loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our
sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in
this way, we also must love one another.
No one has ever seen God. If we
love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us (Holman
Christian Standard Bible, HCSB).
Shortly
after quoting this Scripture Smith makes a very interesting and powerful
observation. “A lack of love should
prompt us to not just look more closely at our marriage but at our relationship
with God.” (Smith 2010) He then goes on to say, “The bad news: your
love problems are bigger than you think because love problems are God
problems.” (Smith 2010) What a powerful observation, and one I was
very oblivious to for the majority of my marriage thus far.
From this observation Smith begins
to help show how the ordinary moments can be extraordinary. Smith divides his book into three sections to
help build upon this basic principle. In
the first section Smith focuses on “God in the ordinary moments.” The second
section is “Extraordinary love in the details of marriage”, and then his final
section is “Staying on the path”. Each
section is well built upon, and upon the ending of this book the reader does
have a good picture of what it looks like to see “extraordinary change in ordinary moments.”
In this book I see no weakness at
all. Smith does well using personal
stories to explain his points in each of the chapters, and this book is filled
with Scripture and Scripture references.
There are many strengths in this book which make it great for not only
reading as an individual or couple, but also for small group or Bible Studies
as a tool to help tackle the Biblical principles of marriage. Each chapter contains questions to help the
reader focus in on the picture that the chapter is trying to portray. This is a book I will certainly read again.
I find it very easy to rate this
book 5 out of 5 for practicality and application, as well as insight and
direction. This book will benefit engaged
couples as they prepare to enter into the challenges and joys of marriage as
well as the veteran couple who have been married for decades. I look forward to seeing the other books that
are offered by New Growth Press.
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