How often do we say, “The Lord is my shepherd” and “Thy will be done,” and then we turn right around and try to shepherd ourselves into getting what we have willed to be in our best interest?
We try to move heaven and earth to accomplish our goals, only to find that neither heaven nor earth will comply. We become frustrated and tired, and we wonder: “What’s wrong? Where is God?”
“The reason why many are still troubled, still seeking, still making little forward progress is because they haven’t yet come to the end of themselves,” wrote pastor and author A.W. Tozer. “We’re still trying to give orders and interfering with God’s work within us.”
Being submissive to God’s will is difficult. It’s counter-intuitive in a high-energy, can-do culture where people are rewarded for taking charge and taking control. It requires listening, patience, relinquishing control and, most of all, trust.
Through submission, we put our faith in God’s long-term plan, even when our short-term perspective is that things are not going well. When Job cried out about the injustice of his troubles compared to the prosperity of others less worthy, he was visited by Eliphaz who told him: “Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you. Accept instruction from his mouth and lay up his words in your heart” (Job 22:21-22).
Through his Son, God gives us the greatest lesson and model for submission. The lesson: Jesus was not the king-like leader and messiah that people had prayed for and expected. Today as then, we must trust that Christ is the messiah who was promised. The model: Jesus himself submitted to God’s plan for our salvation by dying on the cross. He trusted God’s plan, and trust is the key element of submission.
Just as we are to be submissive to God’s will, we should be submissive to each other. In Ephesians 5:21, Paul says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” He’s not saying we should turn our lives over completely to other people. He’s advocating relationships that are Christ-like in their trust and respect, that acknowledge God’s lordship over all, and that promote the presence of the Holy Spirit.
“Submission simply means to defer or yield to the wishes of another,” write family counselors and authors Harold and Bette Gillogly. “There’s no thought in it of one person being better or smarter than another. It is, rather, a non-rebellious attitude of life. Day-by-day living with nothing to prove. We don’t have to make sure we get what’s coming to us. We don’t have to make sure other people treat us the way we deserve to be treated. We can ‘trust ourselves to him who judges justly’ – the Father – just like Jesus did. It’s learning to walk in the steps of Jesus. It’s letting God the Father make us like his Son as we submit to him and to one another with the heart of a servant.”
Being submissive does not mean we stop being ourselves. As C.S. Lewis said: “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become – because he made us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to his personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”
There have been many arguments among Christians and especially among Baptists about the teachings of Paul and Peter that state, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” While these instructions are part of long passages that call everyone to a life of submission, some people have used them to justify limiting the role of women in marriage and in the church. The truth is that the roles and contributions of each spouse are unique and special in each marriage.
Likewise, the relationship of each of us with God and within God’s kingdom and the church is unique and special, regardless of gender.
There is room among believers for discussion on these matters, but there is no room for disrespect. If we profess to be in submission to God’s will, and we are completely honest in that profession, then we must trust God’s leadership for others just as we trust God’s leadership for ourselves.
To do otherwise – to judge someone else’s spiritual walk – is to, well, try to be God. And you can’t submit to God and be God at the same time. You have to choose one, and the choice is clear.