You know being in a relationship or courtship unmarried comes with a lot of adulting. Past the thirties, both men and women look for things married people should be looking for mainly because of the age and times, some because of experiences from relationships they have been in that never worked out.  This is even harder for Christians who are walking the same journey but are in different phases of their walk with Christ. The topic of submission is one that is interesting for me because it often brings both Christians and even atheists into agreement, a rare sight in anything else. Let me not bit about the bush and just go for it. Regardless of religion and background all men want women to submit to them. This is a universal truth. But my revelation in these couple of weeks is for me from a context of Christians, single Christians.

Let me start this way, I think for married Christians, there is really no contention, the bible is clear in the beautiful book that we all love to quote on the subject in Ephesians 5:21-24 when it says “submitting to one another in the fear of God. Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

I won’t even go into the popular debate of love being a condition of submission because in the language of God I have never seen or experienced a demonstration of conditional love. Love is many things outside of conditions. All we have to do is choose it. 

What I do want to bring to our attention though is something new that I learned even in the context of married people that no one is emphasizing enough. Submission is not actually just an instruction God gives to wives or women. The Lord speaks to all of us about submission at different stages of our lives:

  •       In 1 Peter 5:5-6 he says, “Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,”

This verse is not speaking to one gender over the other. Here God is teaching us the principle of submission as a young people of God. This means before we even become husbands and wives, we are to learn and experience the posture of submission by submitting ourselves
to our elders and to one another. In this way we will be humbling ourselves before God.

  •       Then we read in 1 Corinthians 11:3 and hear God say “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” God being God He knows us, His children love power and we know, too much of it corrupts. He gives us the order to help us not misuse or misappropriate this power. He creates a clear order to follow as His followers. In this scripture, God is reminding us how we all ought to submit. Remember in Ephesians 5 he introduced the term head in the context of submission.  We now hear about another head who is above the head of the home, Christ.  This tells us that the head of the home is still expected to submit to another head who is Christ Jesus Himself. Even this head that is Christ, equal to God has a head who is God Himself that He is submitted to. This is the order God has created to prevent us from misappropriating a Godly principle that speaks to all of us without the love condition.

Then the Lord began to teach me about submission for single people, a subject that came at the back of learning about obedience which I know is no coincidence now. This is also a few weeks after one of my friends asked me of my thoughts on the matter in a conversation over lunch and she was surprised by my response probably because I don’t always come across that way. I did tell my friend; I fully believe in the call of submission as the bible talks about it because I genuinely do. The book of Romans 13:1-2 says, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves.”  This scripture puts it beautifully for me because it speaks of submission to each office as ordained by God. I fully resonate with that in the social context, personal and professional context. What my spirit has always rejected though is the misappropriation of submission to drive personal agendas that are misleading. I don’t think God created submission to lead us astray.

Despite this understanding, I am often put in positions where I am filled with guilt of being potentially rebellious because I never clearly hear what God says about this complex matter around single people.  Recently through a few occasions the Lord began to teach me about His expectations of submission for single people.  

  • In the scripture in Ephesians 5, there is something that is often missed by many people or taken for granted even by those who preach it, I suppose because Godly relationships in their nature should not  put us in positions where we are playing husbands and wives without being. “Wives, submit to your own husbands”. Wives not girlfriends, husbands not partners or boyfriends. I think God was deliberate when He gave this instruction. This is where the most confusion arises that leads to the incorrect feeling of guilt. I went back to the popular Ephesians 5 verse 22 where God says “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Here I believe God is speaking to the whole community of believers.  I then tried to understand why submission is equated to a sign of respect for the Lord and I marveled at how God unpacked this for me through scripture in this manner:

Who Should We Submit to As Singles?  

He took me back to the scripture about the head, 1 Corinthians 11:3 “But I want you to know that the head of every man is Christ, the head of woman is man, and the head  of Christ is God.”  There are three men in a woman’s life, God, the father who is also Christ; then their earthly birth father who is the parent as well as any male elder and last but not least there is a husband. These are the men we are to submit to as single women. This is in accordance  with scripture in 1 Peter 5:5-6.  It seems it’s not every man we are to submit to though we are to respect everyone. This made sense to me when I read what submission is, especially in the world dictionary which says, “submission is the action of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” It is clear to me that God was protecting us because He knew that though we were not of the world we were being sent to the world to live with people of the world. He put parameters in place because the world and our human nature as Christians does not always operate as it should. Scripture in Romans 8:7 says,  “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.”

This is not to discourage any suitor who expects to marry someone who is submissive, this is just to clarify who occupies this seat and why it is so.

How Will I (As A Man) Know That She Can and is Able to Submit Then?  

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matthew 6:33 In all honesty God does not want us to worry about things that do not concern us, what He wants is for us to be obedient and yield unto his guidance. Philippians 2:3-8 God says to us,“Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.”
It’s clear for me in this scripture that God is not expecting us to be worried about our selfish needs in our singlehood but focus more on being better people for ourselves and for Him in line with our purpose. Because truly a prudent wife comes from Him, He says this in Proverbs 19:14 “Houses and riches are an inheritance from fathers, But a prudent wife is from the LORD.” This means a prudent wife is a gift, a favour from the Lord. What would make the Lord give you a prudent wife is maybe what you should be asking yourself as you pursue Him and His righteousness.

But we all know this subject is sensitive and important to men from all walks of life, a yearning and desire for a woman who is respectful and submissive especially in the days of “women empowerment” where women are seen to exercise their financial power to take authority of their households.  God being God in His infinite wisdom, knows we do not always operate on faith, there are things we want to see manifest with our own eyes before we can believe. He knows that as a suitor and potential, husband you are asking yourself how you would know if this person will be able to submit really and He designed and gave us a framework in the form of scripture:

Let’s go back to the conversation of the head again; Christ is the head of the Church. In the absence of a husband the head of the church is the head of a home. Christ is always our next of keen, (earthly logic right?). This is who we are called to submit to. Ephesians 5:24 says, “Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.” Guess who the church is? Us, single, married, and unmarried followers of Christ. We are the bride of Christ; this is who we are expected to submit to.

To cement this topic for single people of both genders, when you go further into the book of Ephesians, we are taught to submit to one another in order to both (man and woman) develop the fruits of the spirit which are “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” All found in Galatians 5:22-23.

Wow! This is in fact the lesson to the dance we all rush to experience and not understand why it’s not happening. The foundation to marital submission between husband and wife is submission to Christ and to one another before we become husbands and wives. It is in fact the fruits of the spirit that help us to perfect love and submission.

Thank you for journeying with me in this way, I hope you have taken something for yourself no matter how small that will bring you closer to your maker than before. I know through this lesson I have learned and continue to.

Blessed Thursday

#Quenchmythirst
#thirstythursday 

LM