Oh, What You Said!

It’s not a four letter word, but it’s a word we, especially Americans, extra-especially Texans, really, really hate… Can you guess what word it is?  OK, I’ll tell you, but you’ve got to promise not to get too upset… Are you sitting down?  Submission – ummm, I’m telling!

So, it’s not a bad word, but it’s a word most of us aren’t comfortable with.  Folks get all excited when somebody starts talking about how one group of people needs to submit to another group of people.  Somebody will make a comment about the text in the Bible that says that wives should submit to their husbands (“Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Ephesians 5:24NIV) and people just start going off the deep end all over the place!  Have you ever noticed that?  Why do you think that is?

Some folks would say that we have come so far as a race/species that we are self-sufficient and don’t need to-and shouldn’t-submit to anyone.  The problem with that argument is that the first two people on earth had problems being submissive right off the bat.  So did at least one of their children.  In fact, it goes back even farther than that, doesn’t it?  Lucifer had issues with submitting to authority, and he makes sure that we do to.

What does it mean to submit to someone?  When most of us think of a definition, we go straight to the most negative definition, “abjectly submissive; characteristic of a slave or servant; ‘slavish devotion to her job ruled her life’; ‘a slavish yes-man to the party bosses’- ‘she has become submissive and subservient’ [syn: slavish] “  submissive. (n.d.). WordNet® 3.0. Retrieved July 06, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/submissive

I don’t know about you, but the thought of being slavish doesn’t sound like much fun to me.  We certainly don’t want to consider ourselves slaves.  Only weaklings submit their will to anyone else, right?  But look what the Bible says in Romans 8:6-8: “The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” NIV

Well, that definitely puts a different spin on the whole idea. Those verses make it sound like we cannot please God unless we submit to Him.  In fact, Mrs. White goes beyond that:

“I know that human beings suffer much because they step out of the path that God has chosen for them to follow. They walk in the sparks of the fire they have kindled themselves, and the sure result is affliction, unrest, and sorrow, which they might have avoided if they had submitted their will to God and had permitted Him to control their ways. God sees that it is necessary to oppose our will and our way, and bring our human will into subjection.
“Whatever path God chooses for us, whatever way He ordains for our feet, that is the only path of safety. We are daily to cherish a spirit of childlike submission, and pray that our eyes may be anointed with the heavenly eyesalve in order that we may discern the indications of the divine will, lest we become confused in our ideas, because our will seems to be all-controlling. With the eye of faith, with childlike submission as obedient children, we must look to God, to follow His guidance, and difficulties will clear away. The promise is, "I will instruct thee and teach thee . . . : I will guide thee with mine eye" (Ps. 32:8). . . .
“If we come to God in a humble and teachable spirit, not with our plans all formed before we ask Him, and shaped according to our own will, but in submission, in willingness to be taught, in faith, it is our privilege to claim the promise every hour of the day. We may distrust ourselves, and we need to guard against our own inclinations and strong tendencies lest we shall follow our mind and plans and think it is the way of the Lord. . . .
“Our heavenly Father is our Ruler, and we must submit to His discipline. We are members of His family. He has a right to our service, and if one of the members of His family would persist in having his own way, persist in doing just that which he pleased, that spirit would bring about a disordered and perplexing state of things. We must not study to have our own way, but God's way and God's will.” That I May Know Him 249}

So, we can’t please God without submissive hearts and spirits, but we can’t even please ourselves.

Abraham and Sarah are given as examples of that kind of submission.  And just so we don’t get discouraged right away, Abraham and Sarah also are examples of what can happen when we get impatient and don’t submit ourselves to God. 

I think we’re mostly comfortable with those pictures of submission.  In theory, we agree that we need to submit to God’s will in our lives, and when we take things into our own hands, they usually don’t go so well.

But there’s something else in that story that becomes very uncomfortable for us (well, for me anyway) to think about.  It’s that pesky idea of one person submitting to another person.  I’m not just talking about wives to husbands, because as I read it, everybody gets the same message at some point or another.  Uh-huh, I saw that eye-roll.  You aren’t any more comfortable with it than I am.

In Ephesians 5:22-33; 6:1-9; Romans 13:1-5; Colossians 3:18-22 and, most simply, Ephesians 5:21 (“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”) we read that God wants us to submit to each other.  So, if we want to submit to God, we have to also submit to humans.  How far do you think we have to take that, do you think?

When we think about the husband/wife or parent/child relationships, we can kind of go along with those, right?  At least in those situations we can usually count on the positive feelings from the people we’re submitting to.  And we know that God wants what’s best.  But those verses don’t stop there. 

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free.” Ephesians 6:5-9 NIV

Slaves?  Slaves?  We’re not slaves.  Those verses were written for another time and place.  They aren’t talking about us.  Are they?

Well, no, but I think these verses have some very important things to say about the spirit of submission that can be applied in all the other areas. 

Be honest with yourself now, how often have you (me too) done a task just well enough to slide by, or only tried to look busy when your boss was walking through?  Is that the kind of submission God wants?  ‘Fraid not.  Your boss doesn’t want it either.

And what about when you believe your boss/husband/parent is wrong?  Not going against God in anyway, but just wrong…do you have to submit then?

Think about Sarah’s life with Abraham.  We don’t think much about her part of this adventure.  Can you imagine your husband walking in and saying to you, “Morning dear, we’re moving.”

“Where?”

“Don’t know.”

And your response would be…?  Would you submit at that point?  Or would you have some opinions to share before you started packing?

What about later when Abraham told the pharaoh that Sarah was his sister.  Maybe the first time, we would have played along without any discussion, but what about the second time?  What do you think that discussion might have sounded like in your family?

I don’t believe that Sarah was a passive, weak, dependent person; I do believe that after giving her thoughts she submitted to Abraham’s will.  She trusted God enough to be able to trust Abraham.  Just like Isaac trusted God enough to trust Abraham on Mount Moriah.

“We shall see the salvation of God if we trust in God in the darkness as well as in the light.
“All trials, all afflictions, all peace, all safety, health, hope, life, and success are in God's hands, and He can control them all for the good of His children. It is our privilege to be suppliants, to ask anything and everything of God, submitting our request in submission to His wise purposes and infinite will.” E.G.White, Our High Calling 318

God and Abraham

I heard a speaker who was pretty tough on Abraham for doubting God when God told him he was going to be the father of many nations. I don’t know if I can be that hard on Abraham. I mean, it was really a case of, “Who are ya gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” Right? Abraham knew the earthly reality of the situation: Sarah was just plain too old to have kids! I think he wanted to believe what God told him, but he could only get as far as his human brain would take him. He forgot that God doesn’t have to color inside the lines. Very simply, Abraham limited God, and in doing so, cost himself and Sarah a lot of happiness, not to mention, the world a lot of peace!

Do you ever think about that? All the problems in the Middle East, even the 9/11 attack, can be traced back to Abraham and Sarah trying to help God keep His promise for a son. Did God need their help? Does God need our help to keep His promises to us? I have a hard time with that…I want to help! I want to speed things up! So I run out in front of God and smack into a brick wall. One of these days, I’m going to quit trying to help God give me what I think I need. But until then, I can read the story of Abraham and Sarah and be reassured that even when I lack the faith that God wants me to have, He still loves me. Even when I get out in front of Him and mess things up, He will keep His promise. In Abraham’s case, not only did God keep His promise, but He came and told Abraham face to face! Isn’t God wonderful?

God keeps all kinds of promises; the promises we like and the ones we don’t like so well. And this next part of Abraham’s story is about that other kind of promise.

Remember, Lot picked Sodom because it looked like the most comfortable part of the landscape. He did not want to have to work too hard. He wanted an easier life. And that got him in trouble. In Patriarchs and Prophets, Ellen White says that few things are more dangerous to the human heart and soul than a life where there is not want. “Idleness and riches make the heart hard that has never been oppressed by want or burdened by sorrow.” (p.156) She goes on to describe the people of Sodom:

There is nothing more desired among me than riches and leisure, and yet these gave birth to the sins that brought destruction upon the cities of the plain. Their useless, idle life made them a prey to Satan’s temptations, and they defaced the image of God, and became satanic rather than divine. Idleness is the greatest curse that can fall on man, for vice and crime follow in its train. It enfeebles the mind, perverts the understanding, and debases the soul. Satan lies in ambush, ready to destroy those who are unguarded, whose leisure gives him opportunity to insinuate himself under some attractive disguise. He is never more successful than when he comes to men in their idle hours. (pp.156-157)

Man, she could be describing people today! That’s the kind of people that Lot chose to live and raise his children with. I don’t believe Lot was a bad guy. I mean, he had lived with Abraham long enough to learn the right way to live and I think he tried to hang onto that as Sodom became more and more corrupt and evil all around him. Again, from Patriarchs and Prophets, I read that he was eager to protect the two strangers that came to warn him about Sodom’s destruction, even though he didn’t know who they really were or why they had come to Sodom. He had learned many of Abraham’s lessons. Those lessons may have been what made the difference between him being left to die in Sodom and being rescued by the angels.

Unfortunately, Lot’s children and wife were harder to convince. Maybe because they had not had the opportunity to learn directly from Abraham; maybe because Lot was not as good a teacher; but it may have been just the fact that their beliefs and convictions had been worn down by living in the middle of this sinful place. It just didn’t look that bad anymore. Remember the story of the frog? If you put a frog in boiling water, it will hop right out. But, if you put a frog in cool water and then slowly turn up the heat, he’ll stay right in the water and get cooked.

Lot’s older daughters didn’t want to leave their husbands. In fact, they laughed at their dad’s efforts to save them. His younger daughters and his wife didn’t want to leave their comfy house, their friends and their sisters/daughters. They wanted to stay where they were.

How much like them are we? We want to be saved, as long as it’s not too inconvenient for us. When I was in junior high, I remember praying that Jesus wouldn’t come back until I’d finished high school, and then in high school, I wanted Him to wait till I’d graduated from college. I wanted to go to heaven, but after I’d had my fun. Am I the only one who felt that way?

Thank goodness God saves us in spite of ourselves, like He did Lot and his family. The angels took them by the hand and literally pulled them away. Would Lot and his family have left without that extra pull? Probably not. Even so, they didn’t go far enough. They ended up in another evil little town. Mrs. Lot didn’t make it at all. Ellen White says,

“If Lot himself had manifested no hesitancy to obey the angels’ warning, but had earnestly fled toward the mountains, without one word of pleading or remonstrance, his wife also would have made her escape. The influence of his example would have saved her from the sin that sealed her doom.” Patriarchs & Prophets p 161

I want to set the right example for my family. What about you?