This week I started to feel like someone, or something had it in for me or for us. I recently received a medical report from a test that I did not expect to hear. That report caused a lot of things to happen, to fall into my lap one after another and I had no control. Kind of like a row of standing dominos and when one gets pushed down, it in turn causes the next to fall and then the next, until the whole group of dominos has fallen on top of the next in line. My list of medical appointments came one after another. Finally, the end arrived with a scheduled surgery. That led to another planned surgery to be canceled immediately for a much later postponement, to a distant future date. So, to say the least it was very disappointing as I really want to walk in comfort without pain again. Months ago, I had predicted that it would be a long winter—it was! And now I am ready to say that it will be a long summer. Yes, my hip surgery will be on hold as I am about to have cancer surgery which will probably end with a session of radiation that will further delay the hip surgery. And along the way, I have been told I will also need some oral surgery before the hip surgery! The troubles seemed to be multiplying and exponentially increasing and the pain keeps increasing daily! (I just found a way to use a word from my math background!!) And then one day about two weeks ago our still new to us car, that we thought was an answer to our needs and prayers, had a major dash warning light come on along with receiving a factory recall notice. This light meant what it said! Do not drive the car! This ended with us having to tow and leave our car at a dealership, never to drive it again. That means that we now have no car of our own that I can ride in, to the upcoming surgeries or to anywhere else. And now we have even more problems—exploding "exponentially"! It was all enough to make me sit down and cry—which I did!! Of course, the crying didn't help much. It didn't fix either the cancer or the pain or the teeth or the car. All of it still existed. And it was a bit overwhelming! Eventually I began to think a bit more clearly. I could not see anything ahead that I could do to fix any part of the increasing troubles. I could only pray that even more things that could go wrong would not go wrong!
But how should I deal with what was being dealt to me/us? I finally decided that my word should be SUBMIT! I can't stop the pain—I can submit to dealing with it as something I can learn to gracefully endure as much as I don't like it. Others have way more pain than me. I can't change the cancer diagnosis—I can only submit and do what is recommended for me to do and keep it from getting worse—much worse! And I can be so very thankful that God has given us doctors with lifesaving knowledge. I will submit to surgery and the follow up processes. I have a great dislike for dental work of any kind. But, to have the hip surgery, I will have to submit to the pain of dental work to be able to get to the pain relief of the hip surgery, even though that too will be painful. I am going to submit to pain to get rid of pain! All my worry, all my round and round thinking when I should be sleeping, all my wanting to postpone, all my wanting second opinions, all my wishing and praying that it will all go away, all my wanting my own personal miracle will not help what is my current situation. And so, I have come to realize that I need to submit and let God take care of it all. He knows what is best, what I can deal with—with Him with me! I will let the doctors do what they know will help. I will try to be a willing to submit patient. We will submit to the timing of the car dealer in helping us have a reliable car even if it is going to take 8 weeks for this to be resolved. In the end nothing we can do will change what has happened and if we complain, we might end up with much less than what is being offered. We are again submitting to waiting for God to show us what is next.
We chose our car and felt that God picked it out for us. It seemed like He chose it just for us—an answer to prayer. It seemed like it was just what we needed for this time in our lives. And now--we are submitting to this additional stress with as much calmness as we can muster. It is a bit disconcerting to have to have your car towed away knowing you will never see it again. We had to turn over the keys, inform the bank that we no longer have a car that we can drive and then stop the insurance payments. We are at the mercy of the company to decide how much they will give us to buy it back from us as they are going to junk our beloved little red car. It was declared unsafe for anyone to drive—period! We submit and are trying to be thankful that the unsafe status had not caused us unsafe trouble. We are submitting to waiting for God to show us what is next.
I wondered what other words I could use besides the word submit and/or submission. Of course, I decided to google it! And I got a list!
surrender, submitting, relinquishment, acceptance, capitulation, rendition, handover, cession, obedience, compliance, subordination, conformity, surrender, submissiveness,acquiescence, capitulation, subservience, discipline, obeisance, suppression, yielding,tractability, deference, humility, meekness, amenability, servility, docility, teachableness,subserviency, repression, tractableness, obsequiousness, restraint, inhibition,agreeability, dutifulness,order, modesty, slavishness, trainability, control, abidance,subordinateness
I like some of those words. They offer some insight on what it means to submit. There are some words that I need to look up the meaning of—I don't understand them. There are some that don't seem to be part of my understanding of what it means to be in submission.
God gives us instruction about submission. To submit to God is to align ourselves under His authority with joy and abandonment. By nature, we oppose authority and do not like to be told what to do. But obedience to God ought never to be grudging. We should submit with a joyful, happy abandonment to God's will as it is revealed to us in His word with examples of submission in the Bible, such as Christ's prayer in Luke 22:40–42. Jesus provides the ultimate example of righteous responsiveness and willing submission as He suffered intense agony in Gethsemane.
“And when he was at the place, he said unto [His disciples], Pray that ye enter not into temptation. “And he … kneeled down, and prayed,
“Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” [Luke 22:40–42].
The Savior’s meekness in this essential and excruciating experience demonstrates forus the importance of putting the wisdom of God above our own wisdom. Jesus was the ultimate example of submission.
I don't think I was a submissive person before I got married. I wasn't exactly a go-with-the-flow sort of girl. Laid back. Not easygoing. If others had an opinion about something —like what activity to do or what to eat or how something should be done—I was not the first to agree with their way of thinking but...I often kept my thoughts to myself. So maybe it was assumed I was submitting to their way! I was comfortable taking whatever job I was assigned and happy not to be in charge. I assumed submission in marriage would come pretty easily to me. I was so agreeable! True, I did have strong convictions around God’s word and right and wrong, but as long as I married someone who shared those commitments and convictions, submission would be breezy. Or so I thought. Submission in marriage: The reality of being bound to another person in marriage, and how their problems can become your own.
What I hadn’t thought about before marriage was the somewhat scary reality of being completely bound to another person in every conceivable way. No matter how enthusiastically we choose one another on our wedding day (and would still do so today), there still comes a time in marriage when we realize that the husband’s problems are the wife’s, and the wife’s problems are the husband’s. And we don't like to submit our ideas to someone else. If the reality of being bound to someone else so completely is enough to shake us up a bit, then it’s not hard to see how submitting to another person can be even scarier—to parents, husband, employer, policeman, taxman, doctor, even the ultimate submission—to God!
Submission hasn’t been tried and found wanting—it’s been left on the shelf gathering dust. Submission is that quaint idea meant for women married to near-perfect men, not for us. “Submission is often hidden. It happens in the nitty-gritty moments of life.” Submitting to another's opinion is so hard when I absolutely know that I Am Right! But it’s much easier to scoff at the command for wives to “submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” as an impossible ideal when we’ve never actually tried it out (Ephesians 5:22). Or when we’ve only once or twice given it the lukewarm effort. We’ve dabbled half-heartedly and given up the moment no one was looking (if we’ve even dabbled).
What Is Submission? Submission is willingly coming under the authority of another. This is why every true Christian is a submissive person. The new heart that God gave us when he saved us, and made us his own, pumps submissive life all through our new selves. We submit to God—who is the Author of our lives and, therefore, our true Authority in every way. Those aren't my words, but I thought the message was so important.
It’s from this ultimate submission to God that every other earthly submission makes sense. He has ordered his world and, in our submission to him, we take our place within that order. So, when God says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” we don’t shrug it off because, in minimizing this command, we minimize and make light of our submission to God himself.
What Is Submission? Submission is willingly coming under the authority of another. This is why every true Christian is a submissive person. The new heart that God gave us when he saved us, and made us his own, pumps submissive life all through our new selves. We submit to God—who is the Author of our lives and, therefore, our true Authority in every way. It’s from this ultimate submission to God that every other earthly submission makes sense. He has ordered his world and, in our submission to him, we take our place within that order. So, when God says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” we don’t shrug it off because, in minimizing this command, we minimize and make light of our submission to God himself.
Submission is often hidden. It happens in the nitty-gritty moments of life. It’s what is driving our heart when we follow our husband’s lead and come alongside him to cheerfully do what we can to help him succeed, realizing that his success is our success and vice versa .“Submission hasn’t been tried and found wanting—it’s been left on the shelf gathering dust. “When we do it well, nobody notices. Or if others do notice, they assume we were just born with the gift of submission.”
One Thing Submission Is Not--One thing that often gets mistaken for submission is acquiescence. Acquiescence is different from willingly placing yourself under another’s authority. When we acquiesce, we reserve the right to be on our own team inwardly, while outwardly appearing to be on the same team as another, such as a husband. I am guilty of the sin of acquiescence often.
It seems hard to imagine now, but there was a time in the past when people hardly ever wore seat belts, and children weren’t required to have the sort of car seats they must have now. Without belts and latches to restrain them, it could prove rather difficult to get children to sit and stay sitting. I was one of those children and had to have dead baby teeth removed after a sudden stop caused me to hit the dash of the car when I was a 2 year old standing between my parents on the front seat. I read a story of a young boy who found himself in the car with his mother. He was in the back seat, and, as boys tend to do, he found himself getting restless, so he was up and down and moving around. His mother, of course, told him he needed to sit. Finally, after repeated requests and repeated refusals, his mother felt the need to stop the car and exercise appropriate discipline. She then got him back in his seat and set off down the road again. A few seconds later, the boy mumbled from the back seat, “I may be sitting down on the outside, but I am standing up on the inside.” [My husband, the school bus driver, once took a student to the police station to have them come and talk to a student about how to wear his seat belt and keep it on. After that conversation, the seat belt stayed on much more willingly for that student.]
That little boy's story makes us smile—but it also sounds as a warning for us. This boy, while outwardly obeying, was inwardly rebelling. How often might that characterize our own behavior toward God? Perhaps we outwardly do and say the right things, especially when we are in public and most of all in church, but inwardly we are thinking and feeling just the opposite. As innocent and normal as the scenario may seem, it was pride rearing up in that small boy’s heart that provoked that defiant comment—and it is pride that is rearing up in our own hearts when we sit down outwardly but stand up internally. We are not submitting! And God sees all. Real submission to God creates a truly humble heart. To submit to God is to align ourselves under His authority. By nature, we oppose authority and do not like to be told what to do. But obedience to God ought never to be grudging. We should submit with a joyful, happy abandonment to God’s will as it is revealed to us in His word. It is our delight to discover His truth and act accordingly.
The word submission is not welcome in the world in which we live that is controlled by power out of control. In a place dominated by sin which is defined as rebellion against God, it is no wonder everyone has lost interest in meekness and humility as it is not the world’s purpose. As believers, it must be our own. Submission is a choice. What is it to submit? To give over or yield to the power and authority of another. Submission requires trust. The Bible has named the man as the authority and head of the household. Women often rebel at the concept and have removed such a statement from their wedding vows indicating that this will not be the case. But this does not change the ordination of God in the marriage union that He established.
Meekness allows us to be still when all hell breaks loose in our life rather seeking the shelter of the world or hiding in the darkness that is waiting to engulf us. Wait on the Lord even after you feel that He is long past due because the meek will inherit the earth, but we must endure to be saved. The meek will delight in an abundance of peace that flows from a complete trust in God and confident heart that He is in full authority over our life and worthy of having it. This is the mission of the meek, but don’t worry, Jesus didn’t leave us on our own to figure it out, if we submit to Him.
A wise young man offered me some advice this past week—Worry is our body’s way of telling me there is a potential threat! That is it’s one job. It is the early warning system of our body. My job is to ask if I can affect the threat? If so, then I should take precaution to stop the threat! I need to assess the threat and if I can’t stop the threat, then worry has done its job! It’s over and done with. Worry won’t change anything. Leave it in God’s hands. Don’t take God’s job from Him. Let Him do it—turn the thing I can’t change/affect over to Him. He takes away the threat when He is in charge!
I will submit, with Jesus’s help!