This is an awesome book. It's about marriage, but more than that, it's about living with our focus on God and living for Him - which many of us do, or are about to do, in the context of a marriage relationship. The book is excellent theologically but eminently practical in it's outworking of that. It is a few simple ideas about how a wife needs to be loved and a husband needs to be respected and that by unconditionally doing one the other will increase.

Eggerichs' argues that most of us get stuck on the 'crazy cycle'. That's where a wife doesn't unconditionally respect her husband and/or a husband doesn't unconditionally respect his wife. The book then gives tips for husbands on how to love and wives on how to respect. As a man about to be married I really felt the things he outlined for the women about how to respect a man really hit home. This is called the 'energizing cycle'. Finally he finishes the book with the 'reward cycle' where he tells us that because of who God is we must unconditionally love or respect our spouse not because of who they are or what they've done but because of who God is, what he's done and how he tells us to live. This is a great way to finish the book. At the end their are some appendixes to help you live out the things he talks about.

The book is based largely on Ephesians 5 and deals with issues of love, respect and submission and mutual submission very well and in a way that makes good sense. If Ellisa and I can live out the principles in this book as we start our married life, then I'm convinced we will be in for a great marriage centred more fully on Jesus.

Anyone who is married or going to be married should read this book and I will be giving it and recommending it to all my friends and peers and youth who are thinking about or planning to or are married.