Imagine a family that sets out to build a house. They sit down with an architect to lay out their vision, a wrap-around porch, 2,500 square feet, mudroom coming through the back door, all the normal stuff. But then they tell the architect that they don't want a roof.

R roofs are expensive. We're trying to save money. That would not get least 50,000 dollars off the price.

The architect would probably spend the next 30 seconds

in stunned silence looking back and forth from the husband to wife trying to figure

out if they were joking, waiting for the punchline, or the laughing. well they're not kidding after going through six architects and nine potential

general contractors they finally find a team to build their dream home here's the question How will their drywall be looking after the first rains come in?

What happens if you succeed at something only to find out that what you set out to accomplish wasn't a worthy goal? What if success turns out to be

failure? Or what happens if you set out on a journey with a friend only to realize that you

have two different destinations marked out on your maps.

As Amos III asks, can two walk together except they be agreed?

Marriage is like this.

Marriage isn't just a convenient social arrangement, a man and a woman deciding that it would be nice to live together and do some things together for a time.

No, marriage is for something. Marriage was made by God to do things.

Marriage has a mission.

And not only does every marriage have a God-given mission,

shared by all other marriages,

but your marriage, my marriage, every individual

and unique marriage will have to establish how it is going to be about that

mission in particular.

Every married couple will have to determine how their household in particular with its place,

vocations, strengths, and limitations will aim to obey God's general purposes for marriage in their particular

marriage.

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