Faith and Submission Part 1

Faith and Submission Part 1

OK, I’m supposed to be working on my business right now, but my business mind feels as if it has turned to jelly, I’m struggling to concentrate, and all I can think about is the House Fellowship we had earlier in the day… so I’m just gonna write the note and be done with it!

This is a “kinda” love letter to my future husband (please God!) – if anyone out there ever reads these posts! (Actually, having written the note, I now see that is not a love letter at all – more a letter of protest!)

OK, let me first clarify that as far as marriage is concerned I want this. Oh my goodness, I want this so much! Also, when I speak of “huggie-wuggies” that is not supposed to be some euphemism…! Rather, truly, genuinely, what I dream of most is some strong, tight hugs from someone who is allowed to hug me tightly, and from whom I can ask as many hugs as I want. Some strong arms wrapped around me – happy sigh! Girl hugs never do anything for me – they always feel so light and ineffectual! So please please understand, I genuinely want this, and yearn for it.
And yet.

On one hand, there is what you want, and what you know you want. And on the other hand, there is this big submission issue. Actually, the issue is not really about submission.
I know that as a single woman wanting to get married, it would obviously have been wiser for me to sit quietly in the House Fellowship today and pretend to be the queen of submission, but you know, I just CAN’T! Talking about this issue to me is a little like waving a red flag in front of a charging bull.

I have been brought up in a Christian household from birth, so I have been exposed from childhood to the Bible verses that say that a wife should submit to her husband*. Actually, even as a kid I resisted this, as to me it sounded so ridiculous, that one party to the marriage should automatically submit – just because of gender! This is to me as ridiculous as suggesting submission on the basis of height, or weight, or ethnicity. However, this one the Bible DEFINITELY says! There is no arguing. Imagine, you are arguing with someone about something, and then they say – “OK, I’m taller than you, you have to do what I say”. If that does not sound stupid to you, then it certainly sounds stupid to me. Sorry! I guess my issue as a child was that the fact of your height or your ethnicity or your gender does not make what you say correct, of course. Now as a grown up I see that marriage is different because it is (according to the Bible) about a man and a woman, not about 2 people of different heights or different weights etc – and the Bible has given the man leadership and authority in the home.

OK, so growing up with the teaching, after struggling against it and resenting it for approx 15 years, I finally got to the point where the answer was so obvious – how easy is this – simply marry someone you can submit to! At this point I was so happy that I had been brought up in a Christian home, so that I could carefully choose someone I could submit to as a condition for marriage. If I had married someone, and then become a Christian, and found that I suddenly had to submit to him “as unto the Lord”, I think I would have been very cross! (Depending on who he was, obviously – although I obviously cannot state what kind of marriage I might have had if I was not a Christian – or what kind of man I might have chosen….)

I guess my real difficulty is actually more about the question of whom to marry, and the fact of “the will of God”. Now that I’ve made up my mind that yes, I will submit to my husband (after arguing a little if necessary, obviously!) my big challenge is finding a guy that I can submit to. As I write this, I am chatting with a friend about this subject, and for the first time I see that it is an issue of faith. The fact is that I have zero faith about marriage. I know all of the things that can go wrong. I am so well versed in different issues that different couples face, communication difficulties, trust, money, emotional intimacy… Faith is trusting something without seeing it. I cannot just trust that just any guy will be able to handle these issues. I need to see these characteristics in the guy before I will even consider him. Now because marriage is hard, and there are so many different issues, I think through a particular issue, and I think – “hmm, to overcome that issue, my husband will have to  have X characteristic. ” Then I think through another possible issue and I think “OK, for us to be able to overcome this issue, if we faced it, my husband also has to have Y characteristic”. Now, please understand that these are GOOD characteristics – and holy ones! But by the time you have thought through 20 situations, then you have 20 characteristics for your husband to have. And these are on top of general Christian characteristics like being sold out to God, being hungry for God and for the Bible, pursuing God with all his heart. Oh yeah, and I obviously also have to be phenomenally attracted to him!

Bible Verses (These verses have been the bane of my life!)
Ephesians 5v22

*22 Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. 23 For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. 24 Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

Continued

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PHOTO CREDITS
Tealights image by Kyasarin on Pixabay
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