Trying to describe submission to someone tonight, I first thought to describe our submission to God, which isn’t asking God what our every move should be… and then I realized that’s EXACTLY what I was taught in the United Pentecostal Church that submission to God was. And submission to the pastor. So of course I would think that submission to a husband would also be that. However, what we were taught about submission to God is probably very wrong.
When I was maybe 7-8, a Sunday School teacher drew a line on the floor in chalk. She told us to walk the line. When a foot slipped from the line, she said “Oh! That’s the devil!” Every time a foot slipped off a chalk line. But in reality, God doesn’t have us walking a chalk line. The narrow way isn’t that narrow.
God doesn’t want puppets. He doesn’t want to direct our every move. His “will” isn’t about us praying whether we should take a certain job when we don’t have one at all, or about getting a certain feeling when we pray about whether we should buy a car or a house or take a vacation. His will is simpler than that — his will is that we live, and live fully. “That we might have life, and have it more abundantly.”
So how do we submit to God? Through faith and confidence and hope and trust. “In whom we live and move and have our being…” We live. We move. But in God… maybe in much broader parameters than we were taught. Submission is not about always doing what someone else wants, about asking what they want and then doing whatever they direct. One of the things that God wants is that WE live. That includes, I think, doing things that we enjoy and that we want to do (as long as those things don’t intentionally harm ourselves or others).
So how do we submit to God? By not deliberately doing things that we know are wrong, things that would make him sad. And if that’s how we submit to God, then it stands to reason that’s how we would submit to others as well, keeping in mind that in a healthy relationship, we don’t make someone “sad” because we don’t do everything they say, especially if what they direct hurts us or others. In healthy relationships we are not asked to do things that hurt us or others, nor does either person in the relationship deliberately hurt the other.
What I was taught about submission to God, parents, pastors, and others was very, very incorrect.
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Thank you for writing this!I wish that I could tell you how the UPC’s version of “submission” has cost me countless hours of being in a pit. It has taken many years to dislodge their version of “submission” for me. I refuse to bow down to the ideas & idols of men that don’t even have a clue themselves. Once again, Thank You!!