How to Act Right When Your Spouse Acts Wrong by Leslie Vernick

Some of the most painful situations occur when one spouse desperately wants to fix what is broken but the other is stuck in a destructive pattern of behavior with no interest in changing.

Vernick encourages the hurting spouse to begin to see the marriage through the lens of God's eternal purposes. God's purpose is marriage is not the personal happiness of either spouse but that both would become more Christlike. God does care about our feelings but we must remember that true happiness is found in knowing Him and not in pursuing what we think will make us happy.

Vernick says that choosing to act right, even when we don't feel like it, is true obedience. It may be that God is putting us through a difficult period of training and we should not struggle against it.

That does not mean we are to be passive when our spouse does evil. We are to fight back but at the true enemy, Satan. Evil is overcome when we respond in ways that are godly, righteous and loving. Commitment to loving our spouses is learned and requires practice. True love is not some giddy feeling but a deep seated commitment to build up another to their God-given potential.

The prayers at the end of each chapter help internalize the ideas before God.

This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

See more information at: http://www.waterbrookmultnomah.com/.