How can couples keep God at the centre of their marriage at all times?  Why is this important to the overall health of the marriage?

Just imagine a wheel.  It can be a cart wheel. Or perhaps the cog in a bicycle gear, the powerful wheels of a great airliner, or the precision wheels of a tiny clock or watch.

What is at the centre of each wheel?  Of course the centre of each wheel is the connection for the axle.

And what does the axle do?  It manages the wheel, turning it in the required direction, spinning it the required number of times per minute to determine the speed and timing, and connects it with the rest of the engine so it acts in synchronisation with other body parts like the motor, the battery, the oil, the steering, and the huge range of connections within the car that make it function brilliantly.

Now I have a question for you.  What happens if the axle is not at the very heart and centre of the wheel?  Perhaps it is just the tiniest bit left of centre.  Not very much, just the tiniest little bit off centre.  Not enough to make any difference you say?  Yeah, not that much at all really – not enough to bother anybody.

How does that feel for the person riding in the vehicle?  It feels very strange, because something is amiss and not quite right.  The vehicle seems to be giving you a bumpy ride. Well, it’s only on one side, but You never experienced this sort of lop-sided uneven running.  It’s like sitting on a seat with the cushion only on the left side, which makes you feel higgledy-piggledy, and while it might be fun for a start, over a period of time it gets very uncomfortable.

But it’s only a tiny defect.  It shouldn’t really make all that much difference.  You are just being very pernickety, judgemental and bigoted and probably racist about the way this vehicle is travelling.  Yes, obviously you disagree with me, the white skinned designer of off-centre wheels.  You object to what white-skinned people do so you must be racist.  You should be broadminded and inclusive, and accept that this experimental set-up is a creative version of vehicle design.  Why are you so bigoted about the axle being at the absolute centre of the wheel, when there are plenty of other possibilities?

Well, the freedom to design something different is far more important than conservatively doing the same old thing for ever.  It’s freedom of choice that is important, freedom to be creative, freedom to express our own ideas which over-rides the conservative theory that the axle should be in the perfect centre of the wheel.  Why, we have the freedom to place the axle in all sorts of spots in the wheel.

 The more creative the better, and the more dysfunctional the wheel the more attention is given the designer.  So in the next design I shall push the freedom concept just a little further, and take the axle even further from the centre on perhaps two or three wheels of the vehicle, so that there will be more attention to my design, more pages on facebook about it, more freedom to experiment with a new way of travelling, and anybody who thinks that this is not cool will suffer a great deal of name-calling, and re-education programming until they get it that de-centralised axles are the new cool.

 We can put other programs in place to accommodate for the strange rolling gait of the vehicles – bigger and better springs, softer cushions, perhaps even suspending the seats from the ceiling of the vehicle.  All these very reasonable alterations can be made to make sure the passengers have that “feel good” ride that they all expect.

 What in the world are you fussing about just because we have engineered something a bit different from what has always worked since the beginning of time, but is now old-fashioned, tired and un-cool.  Those old laws about wheels having to have the axle at the centre are for the ancient and extreme conservatives who are too old and crusty to examine the latest ideas and see the merits of progressive thinking.  They are dangerous to our society and want to anchor it in the past because they can’t see any further than their noses. New laws will deal with all of them.

 What we need is a cool lifestyle with everyone agreeing with the new system of off-centre axles as basic to design.  It may take a whole lot of new adjustments and engineering feats to base vehicle design on this new technique, but we can handle all that with our clever, original, progressive thinking.  Any problems like car-sickness, back and neck misalignments, headaches, vertigo, fatigue and more accidents can all be dealt with by making laws against them so no-one can question the new systemics.

We cannot – and will not – tolerate the limited thinking that demands that everyone accept old dinosaurs of vehicle design.  No.  Everyone must accept the new cultural givens that the youth can see fit to try (even if they do change their ideas and become much more conservative later on in life).  We must educate the children in the use of off-centre wheels as being thoroughly normal, and make sure they all base all their values on the new givens. 

That is the way to having a smooth ride for everybody, as long as we make it illegal for anybody to challenge the new status quo.  Yes, legislate the new normal, and make it impossible for anyone to go back to the old style, and give them monstrous fines or gaol sentences if they challenge the new ethic and practice of off-centre wheeling.  We’ll make sure that conformity to the new system is compulsory for all.  That way we’ll have peace and unity of thought throughout the nation.

Dear friends, when you place God off-centre in your marriage, community, country, then you are in for increasingly bumpy rides.  No doubt you will make additional adaptations to keep the ride of life  smooth and keep any conservative criticism at bay, but this will never make up for allocating God, who is all we need, an off-centre secondary focus in our lives, families, friendships. 

What is more, if you do place Him off-centre, then don’t blame Him for the bumpy ride you will inevitably experience.  No amount of accommodating for displacing the Lord of Life, the Spirit of Truth, and the Creator of all things will get you to the destination prepared for your life’s journey.  Life just doesn’t work that way.  Let every spoke of your life be directed right to the Living God who created you and sets everything in place for your to experience the Joy of the Lord and the Peace that passes all understanding.  The road may get rough, but the Lord will see you to completion.

Other people may try to work with the new decentralised system and struggle with all the adjustments necessary to keep their vehicle on the road - with greater or lesser apparent success.  You know the secret of keeping the axle central, and you will be very foolish to operate outside of it.

Think of the wheel spokes as truth, love, wisdom, courage, rest, prayer, biblical knowledge, faith and relentless perseverance, and don’t cut any of them short if you want your vehicle to arrive at your destiny – HEAVEN!

All this applies to keeping God at the very heart and centre of all we do, whether it be in marriage, community, workplace, friendships, hobbies, family.  Once we displace Him the ride will become much rougher than even the roughness of the road we sometimes have to face.  Centralise everything on the Word of the Living God.  Get wisdom, love, patience, perseverance, truth, courage, boldness all centred on Him and successfully turn the rims of rejoicing, giving thanks, and strength over and over as you see Him provide for you and meet all your needs.

Grandmother, teacher, bushlover, horse-lover, gardener, poet , stirrer and passionate person, especially about Jesus.