38 STAY ON-PURPOSE

Life is filled with distractions. Your marriage will be pulled in scores of different directions. It’s so easy to chase after good ideas instead of God ideas.

Remember Abraham and Sarah? They had a good idea. God had promised them a baby boy in their old age. But waiting on God’s purpose took too long, and they were impatient. So they took things into their own hands.

Sarah gave Abraham her maidservant, Hagar; with Hagar they birthed Ishmael. Ishmael seemed like such a good idea, but he wasn’t God’s idea.

God’s idea was Isaac. But Isaac required Abraham and Sarah to stay on-purpose with God. Isaac was born in God’s timing and God’s way. Is your marriage on-purpose in birthing Isaacs or off-purpose and birthing Ishmaels?

Staying on-purpose requires faith. Faith trusts God. Faith hears the incredible, sees the invisible and does the impossible. Without faith we merely hear the credible, see the visible and do the possible.

Keep your marriage on-purpose by trusting God with your actions, decisions and directions.

Try this: Look at every decision you make in light of God’s presence and purposes for your marriage. Ask yourselves, “Is that on-purpose?” Refuse to do anything that isn’t on-purpose for your lives.

To everything there is a season,
A time for every purpose under heaven.

Eccl. 3:1