Submission leads to joy. Are you kidding?
Updated: Oct 6, 2021
I woke up this morning filled with joy. Oh how sweet it is! I know that it is directly related to how deeply I submit to God. The funny thing about submission is that I can't submit. I can want to submit, be willing and ready, even admit to God that I want to submit and it just won't happen. My self-will and self-reliance are so stubborn and it's like they have an existence separate from me. Like they are sentient beings that do not have to bend to my will. So I have to ask God to help me submit, I have to submit my submission to God and let him deal with the self sisters: will and reliance. And I have to turn the girls over and then wait. Maybe the waiting is what softens them. I don't know, and honestly, in this moment I don't care. All I care about is continuing to do what got me here. And to be careful not to want the healing more than the healer.
I think I submitted to my husband for the first time EVER this week too. This is not something I ever imagined I would do. Everything I knew about myself before I gave my life to Christ did not contain the idea of submitting to anyone or anything. I was a believer for several years before he joined me. During the time in between, I didn't feel safe submitting to him because he was not following the same map as me and I didn't want to end up in his camp away from Jesus. Now that he's a believer, I have to trust God. The act of my submitting didn't look or feel like I expected it to. He wanted to do something that I didn't want to do because I believed it was not in the best interest of our well being. But he wanted to do it because he gave his word that we would. I chose to submit (God clearly told me to) after fighting to get my way didn't work. I still don't think that it was the right decision, but in submitting to him, I submitted to Christ and the sisters couldn't stop me. It appears as though submitting to my husband is the action I can take to further let go and let God. My most powerful tool in the path to serenity is submission, not power.