Submission

Submission is about surrendering all we have to God. It's not just about one thing specifically. It's about everything. Submission is when we decide that God's will is bigger than ours. When we fully give what we want to control to him.

However I think submission is more than that. It's isn't just about giving God everything. When we take things as our own we sin. Our desire is to be in control. We want to be more powerful than God and when we think we can control it we sink into idolatry. We want so much for ourselves that we aren't really worshiping God. It is idolatry to not submit everything to God.

This week in practicing this discipline. I realized how much I have been practicing idolatry. Specifically with one thing. Something that is so important to me, I had to protect it. I had to control it. It was mine and nobody was going to take that away from me. I never even realized I wasn't giving it to God. I thought I was giving it to him but the truth was I couldn't even talk about it. I couldn't pray about it. I was practicing idolatry.

The funny thing about not submitting to God is you everything is submitted to God. We only think that it is ours. That we can keep it for our own. There is nothing in this universe that can be ours, it is all God's. So I wonder if God laughs at us when we try to make things our own. When we try to steal it away from him.

God showed me that it isn't mine. He took it from me. Then I realized I was trying to keep it from him. I no longer had control. I never had control. He showed me what was his and what was mine. Then my struggle was different. With the full realization that it was God's, I had to deal with that. Obviously I had not been giving it to him and when it was taken away I was crushed.

Only God could pick me up.

I had to do things this week that stretched me to trust God even more than ever. To put my actions in God's hands. I didn't know how to act or what decisions to make. God walked me through it and I don't know why. I had been so selfish but finally trusting God with it gave me confidence. Confidence from him and in him. I couldn't do it without him and he showed me that.

This discipline was difficult. It was very stressful. I may have made it harder than it was. It's tough to give everything to God. We want it for ourselves. We have to have it. It might go bad if we don't do something about it. Not if we really trust God.