Submission: “the spiritual discipline that frees us from the everlasting burden of always needing to get our own way“. (Foster, R)
It’s not something I have previously given much serious, focused thought to, in and of itself. Out of the 12 disciplines I plan to work through this year, month by month, this was one of the least obvious in how to ‘practice’.
As is often the way in these things, as I have read and prayed, it has felt like everything has been an example of or a challenge to submission.
One of the most challenging examples of submission, and one I have found solace in, is the example of Joseph in his response to Mary becoming pregnant with Jesus. I imagine he would have invested himself completely into his future with Mary, dreaming and imagining how life would be; suddenly he finds himself on the outside of everything, coming to terms with his fiance’s pregnancy, as she follows God’s plan for her life, which asks him to support and accept, welcome and own, a future and a set of choices he may well not have chosen himself. It feels brutally unfair. His one wife, his one life – hijacked by a work of God, and he is being asked to submit to what God is doing, despite how it may feel.
In my practice of submission this month, it has not been the submission to humans that has been the focus; rarely in my marriage do we have to make enormous decisions where we radically differ and have to make a choice where one person totally surrenders their preference for the other.
Instead my daily experience has been the challenge to submit to God, in relation to my husband, my son, my family. The call to submission to God doesn’t change in light of how I feel, or how unfair or challenging the circumstance may be. The way of love doesn’t give exceptions (although without doubt, love brings boundaries, and submission contorted leads to abuse). Regularly, I have been challenged to submit to how God has asked me to live and respond to those around me, in relation to others, despite and inspite of my feelings.
Perhaps some of the confusion around submission over the years has been related to how and who we are submitting to. We are told to ‘submit ourselves to one other, out of reverence for Christ‘ (Eph 5v21). It’s our respect and response to the authority of Jesus that propels us and sustains us in submitting to love whether or not it feels fair, possible, easy or convenient. There is equally a time for refusal to submit to unlove; doing so can equally be the means of pursuing the character and revelation of Jesus in us and others.
The key lesson I have learnt is that Christ is the authoritative voice, and I must endeavour to follow Him whether He asks me to forgive when it is unfair, love when it is hard, place boundaries and have honest conversations when it would be easier to avoid the issue, or come to accept His wisdom and ways even when I don’t understand them.
It is sobering to realise how driven I am by my feelings and my sense of fairness – how easily put out I can become; how central I am to my own life and how much I hate not getting my own way, often not in the major things, but in the nuances of relationships and the decisions of the heart. I have experienced internal struggle to do this submission challenge, but a deep sense of peace and an awareness of God at work when I have. It has surprised me that there is some immediate fruit from the practice of a discipline as hard as this, namely an awareness of His presence and a grace given to trust Him.
This practice of disciplines is a means to the end of knowing Jesus more and making my heart a place where He is pleased to dwell. Submission gives me regular opportunities to welcome Jesus into the detail of my life; it relinquishes me of control, and asks me to trust.
I want to argue less with the still small voice, and choose to die to self to gain a life in God. I’m praying that the authoritative voice in my life become increasingly less mine.
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