Monday, April 30, 2012

Overlooked Examples of Submission

No one gets Ephesians 5:21 ("submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.").  It's the description of what the Christian life is... the Christian life is to submit to one another.



Submitting is simple.  It is putting someone else's needs above your own.  It is stopping what you are doing to do what another needs.


I started this simple little post 25 minutes ago.  Then I got a phone call... and I submitted.  I stepped away from my task and answered the phone.  And I talked and served my neighbor who called -- even though it meant my task that I wanted to do... didn't get done when I wanted it done.


Then my son started crying.  He's tired.  He refuses to go to sleep, so I went to tend to him.  I submitted to him.  When he wakes up at 3 in the morning and is hungry - I submit to him... I change my schedule for his sake.


Submitting isn't some big, it's the normal, simple everyday things that you do for others.  


We all could lament the sudden schedule changes we have to make, the things we give up, how we couldn't do X because so and so needed Y... on and on.


That's submission.  That's what you have been called to do.  


And yes, there are times it stinks -- but that's your old, sinful flesh talking, that's your old sinful flesh that wants its own way talking.  


You have neighbors who need you -- and that is a wonderful blessing.  Enjoy it.  Even if they need you to change a diaper that they have made overflow with something so foul you wonder how it was ever something they ate.

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