“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Ephesians 5:21-24 NIV
Some passages take a lifetime to understand. This is one of them.
We live in a broken world filled with broken people. As a consequence, we constantly feel the need to defend our turf, to assert our own independence, to protect ourselves from being hurt again, to hang on to whatever little bit of power we might have.
Into this reality comes the counter-intuitive command: Submit.
Our minds imagine abuse, oppression, dominance, bullying. It can take years—decades even—to come to the place of trusting God enough to submit to Him. But to submit to another human being, one that we can see is riddled with flaws, why would God ask us to do such a thing?
As I say, the full answer takes a lifetime to understand. But I’ll give you one small piece of it:
A few years ago, I was negotiating a business deal with some men who held more power than I did. The terms they were offering were—in my mind—unfair. I needed them, they knew it, and, as a consequence, I was getting the short end of the deal. This bothered me. A lot. But then I talked it over with God. And He said something to me that changed everything for me:
“These guys can’t hurt you.”
I signed the deal. I went along with what I had no power to change. In the end, I walked away with money I wouldn’t have otherwise had. It worked out okay.
I don’t pretend that little story will solve everybody’s hangups with the “S” word. But I want to give you a place to start. Talk it over with God. See what He has to say.
Dwight
PS. On 5/25/2019 our Inner Wealth topic will be how to overcome guilt, shame, and condemnation. Since many people don’t understand the difference between true and false guilt, and the very different strategies we use to resolve each, we’ll be explaining that in detail.
