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Aug. 25, 2006
Do I love God enough to submit?
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord." Ephesians 5:22.
The submission passages have been on my heart for quite sometime now. You see, I've been livin' by these verses accordin' to how I've been taught my whole life. "It's a contractual thing, you submit, he loves..." something along the lines of you do right when/if he does right. I've been taught, "The man's job is a whole lot harder, we just have to submit, they have to love..." Yet, did I really understand what it means to submit?
A very wise woman told me, "It is more important to be the right person than to be married to the right person." I mean, really, do you think that God was surprised by my husband's sinful nature and may at times not behave as he ought? Do you think that while in my prayers the Lord might say, "Oh well, Patti, when I told you to submit, I really had no idea that he might do that..." God was and is perfectly aware that our husbands were and are sinful when He told us wives that our place is under the authority of our husbands. God is not surprised and yet His program still works! (BTW, even at Carl's "worst" I do not even come close to half the challenges that many Godly and submissive saints have to face!)
I finally discovered what submission meant in theory and looked like in action. It is cheerful, it is changin' my attitude to be a helpmeet to my husband and complete his vision, not expectin' him to be the one to change and fulfill mine. Submission regardin' his feelin's first, submission means sometimes doin' what doesn't seem right or fair. If you only submit when you agree or when your husband "obeys" your boundaries isn't submission, it's doin' what you want to do or negotiated to obtain. I can say that since really puttin' all my trust in God and am learnin' to surrender myself fully to God's program, I'm fallin' in love with my husband in a whole way I never even knew existed. My husband is changin' too, in his own ways, as his walk with God deepens, and guess what I realized? All those fake "submissions" that I described earlier, those things were fearful hindrances to Carl's walk! Now that I've moved out of the way and let the Holy Spirit lead Carl, and quit tryin' to be Carl's "Jiminey Cricket", Carl is learnin' all the things that I'd been wantin' him to learn all along and a whole lot more that I didn't even have the faith to believe could change! But now it is out of his desire to love me as Christ loved the Church rather than his surly, bossy wife brow beatin' him with naggin', poutin', "boundaries" and "education".
That doesn't mean that I never ever say anything contrary. There are times when I lovingly might say (always out of the sight of the children), "Sweetheart, I know you really want to work on your tone with the kids, did you realize the tone you used with ____ was a little harsh". Then I let it go. I might say, "Honey, would you mind takin' a break from that so that I can talk to you about somethin' on my heart?" Then I let him decide what he wants to do. If he takes a break, I'm grateful and try my best to be brief (oh so very hard for me to do!) and let him decide how much time he's willin' to give me. You know what? He knows that my heart intent is to be a helper not a hindrance. Since he knows that I don't want to nag and am discernin' about what concern I might need to bring to him, and when I do bring a concern he knows it's serious because I'm not on his back about every little thing.
There's so much more that I could share but I'll have to save that for another time.
Dandelion Seeds led me to the 30 Day Challenge that S.H.M.I.L.Y. blogged about doin' for our hubbies startin' in Sept. I hope you all will join me as I commit to it! I'll try to post everyday accordin' to the day's "challenge", but be patient. Since I do have a history of preterm labor, I may need to take a break...uh...to deliver a baby sometime durin' the month of September! I hope you all will understand! LOL!
Anyway, let's take a month and bless the socks off our hubbies, saved, unsaved, strong or strugglin'!
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