Submission and stuff

Submission is a spiritual discipline as much as prayer, meditation and scripture study, but it seems to work in the opposite direction of the other disciplines. As I mature in my faith, I feel that there is a natural progression toward more prayer, more study, more meditation etc............ but less and less submission. As my maturity increases, my maturity decreases.

The problem is that everything in my life is moving in the direction of more independence, more freedom and fewer bosses. I am a husband and father who works as a leader in a local church and lives in the USA. I am less and less in a place where I regularly must submit. More often than not, I am the decision maker not the follower. And that can be a problem.

This past weekend was a reminder, to me, of the need for submission in the church body. Our church was voting on an issue. The end result was that 1/3 of the people did not back the proposed leaders' initiative and were unwilling to submit to the presented direction of the church even when they were asked to do so directly by the senior pastor. This reaction/vote of 36% of the people frustrated me to no end. How could they not get in line with what the leadership was asking? It wasn't a moral issue at stake or a question of doctrine. How could they not... submit?

As I pondered this, I was struck by a poignant contradiction in my own soul. The very thing, I was internally demanding of others is so often absent in my own life. In this case, I wanted submission from everyone to the leadership because the leadership AGREED with ME. But what happens when I don't agree with the leadership? How submissive am I? How many times have I complained about the leadership or wished I had a vote? How many times have I lamented that I should be the one making all the decisions (yikes)? When don't I submit? Answer: when the leaders don't agree with me. And that is the problem. We as a people, I, chief among sinners, don't understand submission. We are a nation of independents founded on rebellion living in a culture of self.

Submission is not going along with leadership when they agree with me.

Submission is not being coerced to go along with leadership when they don't agree with me, but complaining to my wife and anyone else who will listen about it.

Submission is being a leader and still being last. Submission is a posture of the soul. Submission is a discipline, one that I pray increases in my life as I age.