Love and Submission

 

Hello blogfam, its really been a while and its taken me a while to write this post because the submission issue is particularly a touchy one especially for women.

Am at that stage in life where everyone you meet is asking " when are you getting married"? and with this question comes the usual advice(whether you requested for it or not)..." you have to be submissive as a woman, don't be too independent, don't be too choosy ..."and the list of advice goes on and on.

Anyways, after hearing the "submissive word a lot of times and seeing the way women react to it whenever it is mentioned , I decided to do a little research on why it is such a touchy issue. My research took me to where it was first mentioned - The Holy Bible, and this is what it says about it....

Instructions for Christian Households

21Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

22Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her Ephesians 5: 21- 25.
  Submission is not exactly something easy, at least if I have not experienced it as a wife, I know how difficult it is to submit to any higher authority whether its one's parents, teachers, boss , elderly people or even God because human beings were created to make their own decisions and act the way they want per time so its quite difficult to have someone dictate to you how you should live or behave or do certain things. I know some brides even remove "obey" from their wedding vows (I no know sha if person fit do that for Naija).
Anyways, when I went through that scripture above, I realized that God is not wicked by asking us women to submit to our husbands, submitting has just become very difficult because the men are not doing what Christ asked them to do which is in verse 25 - "they should love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for her". It is easy as a man to condemn the woman who is not submissive but have you loved her the way Christ loved the church?
Lets go back a little...when Christ died for the church ( meaning you and I), we didn't even know him, we didn't love Him, we didn't respect Him, but He loved us anyway and He went ahead and did what he knew was going to help us in life...the morale? You don't have to wait for your wife to love you or respect you or submit to you before you love her the way Christ asked you too.

I believe we are too focused on what the woman is not doing that we are forgetting what the man SHOULD be doing. In my own opinion, a wife will willingly submit if she is assured of the love of her husband, if she knows for sure that he has her best interests at heart and is not just issuing orders to show who is "boss" and who the "head" of the family is.
Did we note the word "gave"??? there is a saying that "you can give without loving but you cannot love without giving". Giving is a proof of your love, it shows how important that person is to you. Now when I say giving, it is not just money (even though money is VERY important), you give your time, emotions, talents, you share everything that matters to you...now is there a way any woman won't submit to a man that will give ANYTHING to see her happy and well?
Finally my brethren...(lol), I've heard that you don't demand for respect (or submission in this case), you earn it.  So don't beat your wife into submission, don't shout her into submission, don't bully her into submission..... LOVE HER INTO SUBMISSION.
You can check out what Troy Spry had to say on this topic here.

Thanks for stopping by...stay Positive xxx