Tuesday, September 12, 2017

Day 76 - Submission

Thoughts that have come from various quotes taken from the book, "Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim Based Society" by John H. Hovis. Click here to link directly to the audio file.

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"It is my belief that in that place of submission to the spirit, the power of my will, intellect and emotions can be what it needs to be to bring about maximum healing to those I have victimized in the past."

As quoted from the book “Victor - Breaking Free From a Victim-Based Society” by John H. Hovis Page 181.

Oh how I hate the word submission. How do you feel about this, much maligned concept? 

Much of the hatred for the concept of submission has come about as a result of the Evangelical Church fighting society in ways that just didn't need to be fought. The Bible has a much misunderstood verse that says something to the regard, "wives submit to your husbands." As the society changed in ways to allow the much needed inclusion of women in all aspects of the ability for our society to move forward, this verse has become the rallying cry against organized religion. As much as the women's movement fought against this verse some on the Church fought for it. Sides were drawn and division has happened in ways that has caused permanent damage. I am beginning to see why God speaks out so vividly against division in this world. 

I believe the problem with submission is our misunderstanding of what it means, particularly in the area of interpersonal relationships. Submission has so little to do with bowing down as a mind numb robot that the women's movement was fighting against so rightfully so. No, submission isn't about bowing down, it is about being raised up under the safety and protection of someone or something that wants the best for you. 

Submission isn't about authority or competency. It isn't the helpless little housewife coming under the authority of the competent husband that the women's movement saw this word to represent. It's about the victor (man or woman) coming under the protection and finding much needed security in the relationship with another who loves them, so much so, that they would do anything to help them be all they could be. 

Our souls are much like the women's movement. We have gotten the word submission all wrong. It is right to fight bowing down to authority in identity crushing ways. Our souls are there to help us from ever coming under the bondage of anything that jeopardizes the drive for freedom God has placed in each and everyone of us alive today. Where the women's movement has it right is that if marriage is going to threaten a woman from being everything they were created to be then marriage might not be right for that woman. Throwing out marriage completely as some in the women's movement seem to advocate is throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We too can't do the same by abandoning the power of submission to the spirit when we don't fully understand what submission is all about. 

Here's what the Bible says about submitting to the Spirit of God.

So be content with who you are, and don’t put on airs. God’s strong hand is on you; he’ll promote you at the right time. Live carefree before God; he is most careful with you. 1 Peter 5:6-7 (MSG)

It is that place of submission when the soul finds it's power to help us be all we can be. It isn't when we are putting on airs - pretending to be something more than we are so that others will like us. It isn't when we use the soul's power to amass more and more in our lives so that we can look to be more in an effort to feel like we are more. Those are victim thinking tactics that have failed us all in so many ways in the past. Let's not repeat those results again!

Submitting to God's strong hand is such a beautiful and appropriate picture of what it looks like to let our soul's come under the authority of something that has our best interests at heart. Carefree living doesn't happen when our souls are run to exhaustion by us working to prove who we are. Carefree happens when we believe we are all God has said us to be and our souls submit to the power of our creator who wants us to be all we are and more in this life.

You will come into contact with situations today where you will be asked, maybe even demanded to submit in ways that are going to be soul crushing to say the least. Submitting to those situations are to be fought in as best of a way as you can. In the battle of fighting not to submit to the world don't give in to the temptation to not to submit to the God that loves you. It is in the submission to our Father in Heaven where we will receive the greatest healing for all those victimizing events that has made submission such a vile and hated concept in this world.

Let your soul free today. How do you so that? Crazy as it sounds from the world's perspective, the only way to set the soul free is to let it be submitted to God's Spirit. The only bondage the soul thrives in is the bondage of submission to it's creator. Let that bondage be what sets the victor inside of you free today.

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