I’m a fan of submission, submission to the Lord of course, submit ye one to another, and submission in marriage. Such things get a bad rap in the modern world, but as I often try to say, “just read the instruction manual. It explains everything.”
The concept of submission in marriage can be tough on women today because there are people in the world perverting scripture, perverting the entire concept of submission and making it all ugly, a dirty word that any rational person would reject outright. If you want an example of what I am talking about, Night Wind wrote another good post.
However, I happen to believe submission in all it’s forms, as it is written in the bible, including submission in marriage, is a very woman affirming, healthy, fruitful, blessing. A gift. In marriage it actually has very little to do with men at all, although they clearly reap the benefits of having a more peaceful wife who does not give way to fear.
A great definition of submit is simply “to yield.” We all submit at traffic lights. We submit the floor to someone else when we are all trying to speak at once. That’s the softest definition of “submit,” to yield.
I want to share a praise, an answered prayer, some gratitude for the Lord and His willingness to heal us, and a tale of how powerful submission can be.
A couple of years ago I had to pull out the instruction manual again, also known as the bible, because my husband had some health issues. He gained a lot of weight, got sleep apnea, and his blood pressure shot through the roof. His older brother had recently died and his other brother had a massive heart attack, so there is family history here and I’ve been in health care long enough to know we were in dangerous waters. Also, my hubby doesn’t do doctors, so that was very frustrating.
When I joke about shooting him with a tranquilizer dart, I’m not really joking. That is how we get animals to the vet when they refuse to listen to reason, isn’t it?
Anyway, I shared my concerns and my fears with him, and started trying every trick in the book, sneaking veggies in, trying to drag him out for walks, nagging, and sure enough he just got more resistant. God kept whispering “Submit, let it go. Drop it. It’s his health, it’s his authority.” That is so, so hard when the outcome is so important to you.
It was bad, I was checking to make sure he was still breathing at night. Untreated sleep apnea can be really dangerous. So the idea of letting it go, of just submitting to where hubby was taking his own health and trusting in the Lord, was exceedingly painful and not so easy. I took a leap of faith however, listened to what the Lord was saying to me, and I did it. I just poured on lots of affection, celebrated our time together, and surrendered to God’s will and to hubby’s will. I prayed a lot, but I didn’t nag, share my anxiety, or give any indication that I was concerned or that I didn’t trust him to know what he was doing. I just placed him in God’s hands, laid hands on him while he was sleeping, and prayed for healing.
That was two years ago. He has somehow managed to lose 50 pounds, his sleep apnea seems to have gone away, and his blood pressure has dropped out of the red zone. God is faithful indeed, and so good to me. I’m really grateful to see my hubby breathing so well, no longer flushed by high blood pressure, and just all round happier. He seems to be on a good path.
It’s fascinating to me, if I had not been obedient to the Lord, the outcome may have been much different. At the time I didn’t see any of that, but basic psychology would probably suggest that the fastest way to make someone resistant is to try to control them. Often one of the easiest ways to create defiance and rebellion in men is to go all maternal on them. That was exactly what I wanted to do too, go all maternal on him and be in complete control.
To have not been willing to listen to what the Lord was whispering to me, submit, may have caused my hubby to get worse, it could have caused me extra stress, anxiety, and harmed my own health, and we probably would have been arguing all the time and not enjoying one another at all. Not a good outcome. At the time however, I wasn’t thinking about any of that, I was simply feeling distress and anxiety. I wanted to fix what was wrong and the Lord said, sorry, it’s not yours to fix.
It’s hard to explain how monumentally challenging it is to say and to truly accept, Okay Lord, you and your Word come first. You come before my husband, before my own children, before life and death itself. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be His name.
patrickhawthorne01 said:
very good advice indeed.
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insanitybytes22 said:
LOL! Well as you know, it’s not really my advice at all. Somebody much smarter than me figured it all out for us. 🙂
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Ash said:
Do you believe that couples can define for themselves how submission works within their marriage? In other words, is it flexible?
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insanitybytes22 said:
Yes, I think so. Actually, I’d be really hesitant with a guy who spoke of a wife’s need to submit too much. That would be a red flag for me. Like, he should really be more focused on his own self.
I do remember my hubby bringing it up a few times and pointing out that I was total control freak. Ha! As if! But he’d just sigh and let it go. God Himself doesn’t demand our submission, He invites it. It’s kind of natural response to grace or so it seems to me. Sometimes when you realize a husband would lay down his very life protecting his family, letting him go first or handing him the biggest piece of chicken, starts to feel quite natural. 🙂
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Pastor Randy said:
Great thought there, that God doesn’t demand our submission to Him, but invites it…well said, yet again!
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Julie (aka Cookie) said:
I am a very big supporter of submission and of learning submission—God of course had it all figured out for us…but we went and did what we do best, we didn’t listen…as always, thinking we knew best. We’re still not listening, still thinking we know what’s best…but oddly we seem to be making a total and growing mess.
I belive in submission in marriage, but as you say IB, we’ve got a lot of folks out there “perverting”…as in putting the hammer to the nail nicely…perverting!
I believe in the traditional route set forth by God eons ago—the route we human beings decided to reroute long ago….
I believe in obedience…I’ve been disobedient and I saw where that got me…in a whole lot of trouble and misery…miserable with who I was and who I’d become…
I don’t know why it’s so hard for folks to figure out….
God knew, as in God knows, best…we on the other hand, do not.
So if you like a big miserable mess, stick with man’s plan…
not exactly rocket science….
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insanitybytes22 said:
Well said, Julie.
I wish I could take all the lunkheads who pervert scripture and put them on a giant catapult and fling them off the planet. They make it so much harder for the rest of us.
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Julie (aka Cookie) said:
I’ll help you load
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lovelifeandgod said:
I’ve had a lot of trouble with my brother in a similar way. He has schizophrenia, so it’s been a rough path of getting the right balance of medication, a proper schedule, diet, hygiene, and his cognitive abilities deteriorated so badly sometimes we wondered if he would just become a vegetable. His illness has done a lot of terrible things to his self-esteem, he loses motivation really easily because it’s hard for him to grasp the world around him, that often times he just lays in bed or plays computer games or eats a lot to find some way to distract himself. It’s been so hard watching my older brother become my little brother, that often I outright refused it, I assumed he had more control than he did and that some tiny part of it was just him being lazy. I tried to energize him and make him want to come out of his shell and open up but he just shriveled back inside. It’s when I do nothing and just go on about with my studies that he gets motivated. It really is hard letting go, but ultimately only God can pull him out of a dark place.
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insanitybytes22 said:
I’m so sorry. How painful that must be for you. You’ve nailed it Ada, that is the very heart and essence of submission. It’s really tough when people you love are sick, because every instinct we have wants to take care of them and get them well. Often one of the best things you can do is to let go and focus on yourself, to place them in God’s hands. It’s a monumental feat, that’s for sure.
I think I told you once that in some other cultures they tend to perceive schizophrenia as a gift, as a calling, as people who have been chosen to be closer to God. It’s actually a position of great honor, rather than a disorder as we perceive it in the modern world. I’ve known some moms with kids who had Down’s who eventually came to a similar conclusion. That they had been given a real spiritual treasure, that what we think of as “normal” is kind of subjective and superficial. Blessed and highly favored by what seemed so devastating at first.
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lovelifeandgod said:
Yes, I remember you told me that. 🙂 And to be honest, there is quite a bit of truth to that with my brother, too. He’s not very social and crowds make him cranky, but he’s full of love for his family. He told me he always wanted a little sister, and when I was little and we were going through some rough times he would make up funny characters and impersonations to make me laugh. He’s my biggest supporter and he tends to see me in a higher light than I see myself. Often times it upsets me because I know I’m not perfect, but he only ever sees the good in me, even when I was a bratty kid. It’s very inspiring. He has a very quiet spirit but it makes him more profound than most.
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newenglandsun said:
darn, he has to spend more time here on Earth with us scumwads rather than getting to eternity sooner.
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insanitybytes22 said:
🙂
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newenglandsun said:
there’d be compensation for you–you’d get Christ as your spouse.
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The Night Wind said:
Thank you for the link. What surprises me is how many women—though thankfully only a few—turn up on these Red Pill Cult sites and agree with them. Any thoughts on that phenomenon?
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insanitybytes22 said:
The red pill gals, quite a few of them have major woman issues, often raised by a single parent and dealing with lots of suppressed rage towards women in general which they aren’t allowed to express freely for some reason. Ironically,they’re a bit like feminists because what is feminism but an attack on the feminine and a rejection of womanhood? Many of them have done something awful to men in the past so they’re now serving penance by making sure other women suffer.
Labels are just labels and I can’t really paint everyone calling themselves a red pill with the same brush, but that’s the essence of the psychology coming from many of the women. They’re pretty vicious, it’s definitely a mission of revenge.
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Marshall at Sharing God's Story (https://SharingGodsStory.net) said:
“Submit” has come to have only negative reactions… it surprises me to see the practice of it so common- until that word is used. Like “Christian” it’s become a hot button. What, though, to say instead?
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ah,another name for submission that wouldn’t provoke such offense? That’s an interesting idea! How about, “Yielding to life?” or something? 🙂
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violetwisp said:
That’s basically like saying if someone is ill you should just pray to your god and he’ll make it all better. If your husband had a health problem, then intervention of some kind was required. I don’t think this is an illustration of ‘submission’ working – it’s a illustration of you giving up on making him see reason, and him (luckily for you, if you want him alive) eventually taking action himself. Maybe if you’d persevered he would have returned to a state of better health sooner, maybe not. But advocating submissive ‘no action’ is senseless.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“But advocating submissive ‘no action’ is senseless.”
When I was teen a woman told me if I didn’t learn how to let go and surrender and I was going to go insane and have a heart attack before I was 30. She was right.
I suppose you’ve never heard of the serenity prayer? It can be a useful life hack sometimes, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
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violetwisp said:
Agreed, very useful. But nothing to do with ‘submitting’ to bad lifestyle choices, unless it’s been identified that things cannot be changed by your intervention. Then it’s just pragmatism. But I guess you have to dress it up to suit your rulebook. 🙂
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insanitybytes22 said:
“But I guess you have to dress it up to suit your rulebook”
“Instruction manual,” Violet. It’s not a rule book. God invites our submission. He also offers us grace. If it was about our ability to follow rules, we’d all be doomed.
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lovelifeandgod said:
“Then it’s just pragmatism.” Oh, but how boring is that? 😉
I agree with insanitybytes. There are a lot of people who don’t listen to reason or accept help. I’ve lost a lot of friends by trying to make them see reason when they were already down the wrong road and hitting the gas pedal. I had a friend I grew up with, best friend actually, and her parents and my parents both thought I would be a good influence on her when she started being “rebellious.” She dropped out of high school in our senior year, ran away with a college boy, did drugs, got into some occultism, and then blamed everyone who tried to help her. She severed our friendship with one clean cut. I wrote a long letter to her telling her I’d always be available if she ever wanted to turn her life around, or if she got into trouble, because despite her flaws and her final rejection she was usually there for me. But I’m still waiting on a reply.
You can’t force people to do what’s good for themselves. Normally it just incites resentment and further rejection. Often all you can do is pray.
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The Night Wind said:
Violet: what you’re describing is the Red Pill position, not the Christian one. A Christian’s first duty is submission to God; a wife also submits to her husband. But if submitting to the husband or to God comes into radical conflict, the wife must obey God first and follow her conscience. The Red Pills believe that the wife cannot put even God’s Will above that of her husband.
A lot of these guys actually believe that men (males) are not even in need of Redemption but that only females are tainted by Original Sin. It’s just a variation of some of the old racialist heresies that taught that Whites were created in God’s Image while all other races evolved from primates. And some Red Pills have even brought that theory back as well.
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SLIMJIM said:
Very very good post sister
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insanitybytes22 said:
Thank you 🙂
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