21/02/2022
[START HERE...]
So, God has begun teaching me about Submission.
One night, we gathered at a friend's place just to catch up. What was meant to be a couple of hours chat went well into the night, past midnight. I was very vocal and emphatic on what I believed in regarding parenting and blew my trumpet for the better part of the conversation.
Fast forward, five days later, I get into this quicksand situation in my relationship and everything I did made me sink even more. That night, from 7PM all the way to 1AM, by the grace of God, the Spirit of God begins to reveal to me how I have failed (in life, relationship, workplace, ministry, as a father, et al), and He highlights all the details of every wrong turn I took and went down memory lane to where I lost it all. He also highlighted what I have lost as a result. These truths hurt me like hell. I did not want to hear them. I wished He could stop talking but that would mean I am exalting "me" and "making it about me". I was so ashamed of myself. I was torn up inside. All I wanted at that point was to see my boo back to her happy place, the place we were before I lost it. I couldn't stop asking myself, how much more pain could I have caused her and my children as well? I said to myself "I have allowed PRIDE and SELFISHNESS to grow in me but not anymore. It shall no longer be about me. I shall put her and others first. I shall be mindful of her and others. I shall be kind and considerate." I was going to be deliberate, intentional and radical. For how was I going to do this (be self-centred, selfish and proud)? For the better part of our marriage, I had been all words and no action so much so that words no longer had meaning. ACTIONS, I was going to let my actions speak for me. I asked God for HELP. And viola, first thing in the morning he began to take me on a learning journey - SUBMISSION.
What Submission not:
๏ง Submission is not the exertion of one person's will on another, that is control.
๏ง Submission is not submission if it is forced.
๏ง When you force it is an admission of fear.
๏ง When you are not submitted you are scared.
What Submission is:
๏ง Submission is the voluntary surrender of my will to the role of another.
๏ง Submission is about the choice to decide what to do with what I have the right to do.
Here the question begs, how is Submission a remedy for Pride?
Submission Grows at the rate of my prayer life. The way this works is that I cannot be a proud person and be praying. One must give.
Prayer keeps me affixed at my role and God's. Right here I begin to see what it means to be submissive and not make it about me.
The Word of God says in Psalm 10:4 "The wicked in his proud countenance does not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts."
The opposite of the above scripture then means that anyone who deliberately and wilfully seeks God/ prays to God, is humble and God is in his thoughts. This right here is the beginning of thinking about others other than me. In praying, I am beginning to submit my heart, my mind, my thoughts, my action to God.
Then the Spirit of God takes me through several scriptures that speak of the relationship between God and the proud - GOD OPPOSES THE PROUD. Here are just 5:
๏ง Psalm 138:6 [NLT] Though the LORD is great, he cares for the humble, but he keeps his distance from the proud.
๏ง Proverbs 8:13 [NKJV] The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverse mouth I hate.
๏ง Jeremiah 50:31 [NIV] โSee, I am against you, you arrogant one,โ declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty, โfor your day has come, the time for you to be punished.
๏ง Amos 6:8 [NKJV] The Lord GOD has sworn by Himself, The LORD God of hosts says: โI abhor the pride of Jacob, and hate his palaces; Therefore I will deliver up the city And all that is in it.โ
๏ง James 4:6 [NIV] And he gives grace generously. As the Scriptures say, โGod opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.โ
If you think about what prayer is, it is the renunciation of what I know against what He [God] knows. It is the admission of my fallibility (the tendency to make mistakes or be wrong). I am saying to God that you are Lord over me.
So, the more prayerless I am, the more rebellious, proud, haughty, selfish, self-centred I will be.
Prayer checks my will. Prayer checks my intellect. Prayer checks my soul. It keeps me at a point of evaluation and assessment from a superior role to myself.
If ever there is a struggle with my submission, the starting point is to be more consistent in my prayer.
When I am more submissive than I am scared, it means I stop at nothing to honour God.
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