Submission

It has come to my attention that I have a submission issue. I’ve spent the entire weekend trying to get to the root of the issue because I genuinely thought I was submissive. I’d even go as far as to say I’m a people pleaser even. Alas, rumour has it a girl has submission issues.

I thought submission issues stemmed from pride. Initially that was my understanding. But, I can’t submit because I can’t trust. I have trust issues. You see, growing up, the people in authority over me made strange moves that left me wounded and feeling unsafe. I lost my ability to trust anyone with my wellbeing. I may have even developed resentment towards people in authority. A wee bit.

Titus 3:1 Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good,

Currently, the only person I seem to be able to submit to is my husband. Was it always like that? No! In our first year of marriage, things happened that made me question my health and safety with that man. As time went on, I started to trust that he has my best interests at heart and that sometimes things will go wrong, but that’s just life and not that my husband is an enemy of progress. I enjoy submission, can you imagine if I had to handle the finances of the home? I’m just a girl, please. And Nagusi genuinely knows how to run his household and make a plan. #LoveItForMe

So where are my issues of submission popping up?

I’m struggling to submit in the church. After attending Boot Camp in June, I learnt so much about the spiritual realm and how we shouldn’t be laissez-faire about our salvation. The thing is, religion is the one aspect of my life that people in authority messed up for me. They had me believe that ATR would be our saving grace, and yet it’s taken me over a decade to undo all that was done during that great delusion. My salvation is important to me. I’m hyper vigilant about false doctrines and the possibility of being misled. So I struggle to trust and therefore I can’t submit.

I struggle to submit to God (the crowd gasps). We can thank my biological father for that. He ruined my perception of what a father is and what a father does. I’m praying to God every day to teach me how to be a daughter, a King’s daughter at that. I genuinely did not understand how deeply absent fathers can mess you up. Now it makes sense, why God singled out the fathers to not drive their children to wrath. How you relate with your earthly father simultaneously sets the tone of how you’ll relate to your Heavenly Father. It takes great effort to fix the latter when the former was mishandled.

Job 22:21 Submit to God and be at peace with him; in this way prosperity will come to you.

I have a relative who turned to ATR because his dad was an elder in the church, but his life looked nothing Christ-like. The disparity between the two versions of his dad ruined Christianity for him. He couldn’t trust his father to be a good person and thus by extension, he couldn’t trust the doctrine the father supposedly lived by. I don’t blame him, because we shall know them by their fruits, right?

You can’t submit to something you can’t trust. I can’t submit my money to a pyramid scheme because I don’t trust pyramid schemes. I don’t submit myself to skydiving because I don’t trust parachutes. I’m hoping you’re starting to see the pattern here.

I don’t support Queen Vashti, but I totally understand why the girl did what the girl did. When we read Esther, we are told that the king was “in high spirits from wine” when he summoned her to come and be seen at his party. See, I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve seen enough period dramas and current news headlines to know that drunk men are not good people. I wouldn’t walk past the Rezende touts when they’ve had their fill of “kombucha”. “But her husband was the king” and so he was but birds of a feather, flock together. When you read the whole chapter, you see what kind of person the man was. Yes, I think it’s romantic for my husband to say, “sukuma mkami bakubone” but it all depends on the audience. The audience can change a romantic gesture into an unsafe environment. Think about it like this, why did Abraham say to Sarah, we’ll pretend to be siblings, you’ll be my sister?

Hebrews 13:17 Have confidence in your leaders and submit to their authority, because they keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no benefit to you.

I think I have presented a strong case for how trust and submission go together. If you can’t submit to someone you can’t trust, how can they help you? How can we confess our sins to one another so that we can be healed if we can’t trust each other? It’s so hard to trust when it comes to religious leaders because what if they are just sheep in wolves clothing? The Bible says even the elect will be led astray. I don’t wanna be led astray, so I’m stingy with my trust. Imagine missing out on heaven because someone misled you with strange doctrine, and you blindly followed. Eh, could never be me, please Lord. Let that cup not even be presented to me. But if you can’t trust the vessel, can the vessel’s anointing yield the desired results for you?

Manje, it’s a domino effect. Without trust, you can’t submit. Without submission, you can’t serve. And the whole body of Christ is about being of service to one another. Jesus calls us to serve and be of service. Let me put it like this, a woman who can’t submit to her husband will see service to him as a humiliation ritual or an oppression. It’s tough to bend the knee when the man before you has let you down many many times. Women who are well taken care of don’t mind being of service because gratitude gives you a boost of extra energy to go above and beyond. It’s hard to go on your knees and hand over the tray when you aren’t sure if the weight of the world will let you get up from there.

Have I figured out submission yet? No. I don’t even know where I want to submit. But I definitely have my work cut out for me when it comes to working through my trust issues. We ought to be submitted to the servants of God to reap the benefits thereof. No man is an island. We have too many people branching out and starting their own churches rooted in rebellion just because they struggled to submit. And rebellion is as the sin of… witchcraft.

Alright, let’s end it here because it’s a long post already, but this is one of the sermons that convicted me about submission. I hope it blesses you.