I’ve written about submission when it’s hard. In fact, in the earlier post on unsubmissiveness, I said that it isn’t even submission if you agree with your husband. But I need to clarify that.
In a godly marriage, a wife is living in a respectful and submissive manner with a husband who is living in a loving and sacrificial manner. Both are sacrificing for one another, laying down their lives for one another, and they do this all the time. They may not even notice because it is such a pattern of life for them. Submission is an attitude of the heart, and it is a frame of spirit. So a wife could be living submissively day-in and day-out and never really be identifying it as “submission.” But it is.
I don’t want to give the word submission a bad rap by giving the impression that it is only applicable when it’s hard. It is sometimes hard. When Jesus submitted in the Garden of Gethsemane, it was very hard. But when He was doing the will of His Father day-in and day-out while on the earth, He was living in a submissive manner. God’s will was Jesus’ will. They agreed. And in the Garden, Jesus made the Father’s will His own.
So God has shown us how to submit when it is hard, and He has shown us how to live submissively all the time. Both are good. Both are required.
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That’s such a beautiful clarification, Mrs. Wilson! Thank you for sharing it.
I appreciate this. I have heard it said that submission is only really submission when you don’t want to, which left me wondering how, then, someone could have a submissive spirit? Would a submissive spirit mean that someone was always feeling rebellious but resisted it? That makes no sense, then, to call it a “submissive spirit.”
This is a much more balanced take, IMO.