We finished our S.O.S. Ephesians study this morning.
That is the Bible study I host at the cafe on Tuesday mornings (I don't lead it; this lady named Susan does. I just play hostess, making scones & coffee, etc. for the small crowd of older women who come).
Right before starting that study we had just finished a sermon series, coincidentally, on Ephesians at church.
A few months before that, God gave me still deeper understanding of submission to my husband.
And recently God has been rocking my understanding of submission to my boss.
Get this: In Ephesians (& elsewhere in the New Testament), I am told to submit to both my husband and my boss...
(wait for it...)
...as to the Lord.
Regardless of whether they're being obedient to God.
But the zinger is the "as-to-the-Lord" part.
Doesn't that mess with your mind a little?
It does mine. But in an exciting way. I get excited about stuff in the Bible that seems really counter-cultural. Almost because I'm told to be deviant. I feel like "submission" is a swear word, kind of.
It excites me because it's deviant and it's simpler.
I mean, it's super-hard to submit when your husband or boss is doing stuff they should not be doing, or not doing stuff they should be doing. That's for sure. BUT, it's simpler not carrying around all that disgruntled-mind-always-churning-about-how-and-why-things-should-change. I'm responsible before God for one thing: submit as to the Lord. They're responsible for the running of things in a way that pleases God and treating me really well. Their assignment seems a lot more complex & heavy.
(Well, and I know that because I'm a boss, so I'm on the other end of it in other relationships.)
But in my relationships with my boss & husband, my end is honestly pretty simple & reaps GREAT reward. So for the joy set before me, it's easy to do.
And any opportunity I get to be on the somehow submissive/humbler end of a relationship, I love it because it's what Jesus did. That he chose to come down from glory & lower himself to wash the dirt off our ungrateful, lazy, foolish, arrogant feet... wow. And I have these clear, straightforward opportunities to be like him in that! It's almost unfair.
Man, do I sound sarcastic when I say these things? Because I'm totally sincere! I love it!
My eyes have been opened to it in a new way recently. It's blowing my mind & I love it. Another paradox of this life of faith: in submission there is freedom & joy. We know that's true with submission to God...then he goes and tells us that we're to do it with husbands & bosses, as if we're submitting to him!
I feel deviant. In a really right way.
