The Superiority of Glad Submission

I am not a wife, so I cannot speak from first-hand experience, but the other day I had a pre-wife epiphany. I was reading through Ephesians and got to the wives and husbands section. Normally, I nod my head in agreement and just wonder what it could possibly look like for me in my future. But that day I found myself in a cascade of thoughts about the feminist-hating word: "submission." 


Christian women are called to submit to their own husbands, as to the Lord. (Eph 5:22) Christian men must feel respected and loved when their wives submit to them. But submission in and of itself isn't great if it's just part of my duty. How much more loved and respected a husband must feel, if his wife displays GLAD submission to his leadership. She more accurately reflects Christ when she gladly submits to her husband's initiating and sacrificial leading. Christ didn't just submit, he gladly submitted to the Father's will. 


Jump from the earthly picture for a moment. Then Christ, our husband, must get glory and respect when we submit to his will for our lives. And not just plain ho-hum submission to his will for our lives, but glad submission to his will. I find myself getting to a place where I say, "I'm finally accepting God's will for my life." I want to be at the place where I say, "I gladly accept God's will for my life." 


If I cannot gladly submit to God's will and leadership over my life, what makes me think that one day I will gladly submit to some man's leadership? If I can't gladly rejoice over Christ's perfect rule over my life, I will not have inclinations to gladly rejoice over a fallen, sinful man's leadership in my marriage. 


Praying that God moves my heart from submission to glad submission to his will over every area of my life. 

The Fourth Watch...

"...the boat was...beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea..." 
Matthew 14:24-25

Sometimes in the "storms" of our lives we often find ourselves fearful and desperate. We look for Christ, freak out, and then lose hope because he doesn't seem near. We have a great need for enduring faith. Perhaps we are only in the first watch of the night. Matthew says, "in the fourth watch of the night." We must keep looking for Christ, he will surely come. It may be in the night, and it might be in the fourth watch, but he comes. He has promised to be with us until the end of the ages. We can have faith in his presence in every storm. 

And let me not lay my pipe 
        too short of the fountain,
        never touching the eternal spring,
        never drawing down water from above


(valley of vision) 

Ten Thousand Joys Await You There...

Come, hopeless hearts, do not despair
Hide away in the love of Jesus
For ten thousand joys await you there
Hide away in the love of Jesus

Steve and Vikki Cook, Hide Away in the Love of Jesus 

The Sufficiency of His Relentless Grace

“God sometimes takes away the things that have become precious to us because they are supporting us in our life of sin and hardness of heart toward him. Alternatively, he sometimes takes away things that were good in themselves because he wants to use our lives as a powerful testimony of the sufficiency of his relentless grace in the midst of our weakness and loss. Invariably, though, he has not brought these trials and losses into our lives because he hates us or is seeking to afflict us, or to get even with us for our sin. On the contrary, if we are his children, he loves us and through this loss wants us to receive something far more precious than all of the trinkets to which we become so desperately attached. He wants us to give us more of himself.” 

Iaian Duguid

Though the fig tree should not blossom...

"Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength..." Habakkuk 3:17-19


Growing roots in the deep sovereignty of God and glad contentment in Christ will bear the wonderful fruits of faith in the goodness of God and unshakeable joy in God.