SUBMISSION by Gittel Fruma God has been teaching me some powerful truth. It’s life-changing and liberating. It’s simple and impossible without God. It’s the beginning of restoration and the realization of God’s promises in my life.
Do you see my conundrum? I have submitted to authority to get around it. How do I learn to yield? As my sister and I would say, with all the sincerity in the world, “You slap some Jesus on that.” Submit yourselves therefore to God.–James 4:7a ESV Let me back it up a few books to show you just what an “aha!” moment this should not have been for a Jew who grew up in Hebrew school.
My submission has nothing to do with anyone else.
I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.–Exodus 20:2-3 ESV
Did you catch that? I didn’t on the first pass. But I’m starting to. It’s creating a tsunami in my walk with God.
The Jew within me scolds myself, “Were you paying any attention in synagogue?!”
As a woman, a wife, a member of Church leadership, a daughter, a follower of Jesus (the list goes on, but let’s end here), submission is a way of life for me. I am commanded by God in nearly every area of my life to submit to other humans. The order of said submission is sometimes blurry. The hierarchy I submit to is occasionally out-of-order. However, human authority itself is ceaselessly relevant in my daily life.
It’s so simple, friends. When I submit to the Holy Spirit, when I truly surrender to what He tells me to do, I am not in submission to man. I am in submission to God.
Submission has meant many things to me, but what has marked my journey into submission more than anything else is frustration. Frustration that I cannot make all my own decisions. Frustration that although I’m an intelligent, capable person whose skills are readily called upon; I am not the boss. Frustration that no matter how I try, I never seem to be submitting well enough or properly enough or often enough. You see, I’m not very good at submitting at all. Without getting into the finer details of my childhood, let’s just say surrender was never my strong suit. Never. Could I meet expectations to further my own agenda? Yes. Oh, I excelled at that. I was also a master of quiet rebellion and a machiavellian manipulator. But submission? The action of yielding to the will of another person? Absolutely not.
Don’t fret! It’s not heresy. True submission is the seamless intermingling of several profound truths: I am an undeserving sinner. God’s grace saves me when I accept that Jesus died for my sins. I deserve nothing and have no qualifications to lead my own life. Without God’s wisdom and direction, I have no chance of doing what I ought. Yet, I will give an account to God for my days. All I thought, spoke, and did will appear before the courts of heaven. I will give an account for it. I am responsible for me regardless of what was occurring around me while I thought, said, and did. There will be a reckoning. There will be no excuses. Jesus’ blood will cover my sins. The point at which I start in heaven will never be moved. I cannot redo my entry into eternity. Bearing all that in mind, I am aware of one obvious thing. I better slap some Jesus on that.
14 | M AG AEVERY Z I N E N ACORNER ME FAITH ON
