One Marriage Under God: Building an Everlasting Love [Hardcover]

H. Norman Wright (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2005

God’s Dream for Marriage Can Be Reality!

Who still treasures God’s dream for marriage? The institution of marriage has been assaulted with a vengeance, bringing high divorce rates, widespread cohabitation, and a sharp decline in esteem for traditional marriage; but a ray of hope burns steady and bright. By returning to God’s original intent for marriage, we can overcome all of this world’s attacks against it. One Marriage Under God, by bestselling author and educator Dr. H. Norman Wright, unfolds in a fresh way what God’s dream for our marriages really involves, and how to recover it—for good. Couples find hope, healing, and new joy in their God-ordained union.

What’s It Like Being Married to Me?

Stepping into someone else’s shoes never fails to bring fresh insight. Ever tried on God’s?

Bestselling author and educator H. Norman Wright cuts through the cultural confusion and clarifies the institution of marriage as God originally created it—a beautiful, committed, eternal bond. A bond that leaves only one option for anyone who’s ever said I do: Make it work, no matter what.

But how?

Wright considers the temptations and struggles facing today’s couples and offers practical, proven guidance steeped in God’s Word. You and your spouse will discover how to answer the call to be one, meet the challenge to love, and rise to the occasion of sharing your story with others.

One Marriage Under God will help you see things from God’s perspective. It’s the best thing you will ever do for your marriage.



FRONT FLAP:

Become a Marriage Keeper

Popular culture attacks it and your own doubts can plague it, but God’s original intent for marriage will forever remain. You can honor Him by choosing to preserve, honor, and nurture your own marriage as well as the marriages around you. God is calling forth Marriage Keepers to make a difference in society today.

One Marriage Under God explores thought-provoking insights: Whether you married the “right” or “wrong” person is entirely up to you. God has a good plan for every marriage. Your marriage needs to be recreated daily. Culture’s alternatives to marriage are destructive; God’s plan is flawless.

Your marriage won’t wait. Begin to build up today what God first brought together.

Story Behind the Book

“I have a real connection with this book. I even processed ideas and chapters while I was bass fishing! While that was scary, my hope is that it will disturb readers in a positive way, providing the hope that marriage really can be richly fulfilling. This book is different from the rest because each reader will discover the benefits of marriage done God’s way, be challenged to recreate their marriage according to Scripture, be motivated to apply several marriage change princples, be provided with skills to become a Marriage Keeper, and to take posititve steps to reverse our culture’s trends toward divorce and living together.”

—H. Norman Wright

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If you're married, your top concern should not be pleasing yourself, or even pleasing your spouse: it should be pleasing God. So says Wright, a popular Christian counselor and prolific author. In an encouraging and straightforward addition to his oeuvre, he marries together, as it were, sociological observations about the benefits of marriage with biblically-flavored self-help instructions for making marriage work. Drawing on studies like Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher's The Case for Marriage, Wright criticizes the prevailing marital mores in contemporary America. People who cohabitate before marriage are more likely to divorce, he argues, and cohabitating couples are more likely to be depressed and anxious than married couples. Marriage, on the other hands, tends to lower people's risk for heart disease, cancer, strokes and car accidents, and married couples are generally more financially secure than single or divorced folks. Some of Wright's refrains-such as his explication of male headship-have been sung countless evangelical nuptial how-tos. But much of this book is fresh. To wit, Wright's insistence that Christians be intimately involved in other Christians' marriages, saying to friends whose marriage is on the rocks, "Let's intervene and help you find a better way."
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About the Author

H. Norman Wright is a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist whose private practice spanned thirty-five years. He is currently a research professor of Christian education at the Talbot Graduate School of Theology. Dr. Wright is the author of more than seventy books, including Quiet Times for Couples, Before You Say “I Do,” and Communication: Key to Your Marriage. He has pioneered premarital counseling programs throughout the country, is a certified trauma specialist, and conducts multiple seminars. Dr. Wright and his wife, Joyce, have been married forty-five years.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Multnomah Books (September 16, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590524845
• ISBN-13: 978-1590524848
• Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #788,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. H. Norman Wright is a Gold Medallion winner and author of more than seventy books. He is a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist and former professor at Talbot School of Theology and Biola University where he directed its Graduate Department of Marriage, Family, and Child Counseling. He and his wife, Joyce, have been married more than forty years and live in Long Beach, California. They have a son and a daughter.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A guide to help couples redefine their marriage relationship, November 2, 2005

By 

FaithfulReader.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One Marriage Under God: Building an Everlasting Love (Hardcover)

Dr. H. Norman Wright, a marriage and family therapist who is the prolific author of more than 70 books, offers today's easy access divorce-prone culture a hope-driven yet practical alternative to succumbing to the statistics of marital demise. Wright has coined the term "Marriage Keepers" and uses this simple phrase to help couples redefine their marriage relationship from a God-ward orientation.

Says Wright, "Being a Marriage Keeper means being on a mission --- to demonstrate that God's plan for marriage works, to call others to experience it according to His plan, and to rescue those on the brink of disintegration." Further, Wright continues that Christ has given Christian believers a mandate to follow his stead in all areas of life, which includes marriage relationships, flawed as they might be. Christians who struggle within the confines of their marriage and who are transparent to this fact allow others the opportunity to come alongside and offer nurturing, timely support as well as demonstrating that God can provide the gracious stamina to tough it out through the difficult patches of life --- all community-building efforts that strengthen the individual, the family, and the church itself.

Wright, who also serves as a trauma specialist, recognizes that the church in general comes through "after the fact" in response to many instances of life devastation. However, he believes that churches need to have a plan of intervention in place before marriages crumble.

Wright's text begins with an all-too common current-day scenario, in which a friend telephones another friend to inform them of the impending demise of their marriage. The author challenges readers to thoughtfully consider their reply at such an emotionally charged moment. As a caring confidant, one naturally desires to fully support another in the face of such pain, yet Wright offers a more forward-thinking plan, a God-inspired solution. He suggests that fellow Christians gently encourage their friend to consider a different perspective from that of ending the marriage to one of "image bearing." Rather than seeking personal fulfillment, happiness, and one's own best interest through one's mate, God calls his followers to "glorify one another, not degrade." "Degrading" is a violation of another person emotionally, physically, or sexually. It can also take the form of simple "using" another for one's own glory or purpose.

Throughout his text, Wright offers practical and persuasive ways to alter this faulty relational style by detailing in chapter-by-chapter form how couples can learn to adopt a "we" rather than a "me" mentality. He invites readers to up their commitment level --- being committed to the marriage even when commitment to one's spouse is lagging or even absent. He also challenges Christians to understand the devastation that divorce brings to everyone within the family unit as well as society at large. One of the highlights of this text is the author's positively inspiring chapter on the benefits of marriage, what he terms as a "carefully guarded secret," providing sincere empathy paired with unwavering biblical principles.

In sum, Wright invites married couples to adopt this creed each and every day. "Today, I'm going to say 'I do' all over again by considering our marriage in every choice I make." Wise counsel.


--- Reviewed by Michele Howe

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book, March 9, 2006

By 

William R. May "Richard and JeannaLynn" (Oklahoma) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One Marriage Under God: Building an Everlasting Love (Hardcover)

Wright calls the church to quit being so passive in the assault on marriages. He calls us to be Marriage Keepers. The reader of this book will be inspired by Norman's grand style of writing, and equipped with his practical recommendations to encourage couples on the verge of divorce to reconsider and couples who are co-habitating to get off that destructive path.

In the meantime, of course, the reader will have learned some great things about making his own marriage have the godly look that will propel it to greatness.