Reverence for Christ
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her”
Ephesians 5:21-25
Submitting ourselves to others can be a grueling task. It is easy to say you are going to submit yourself, be tough to actually follow through with true action.
Why is it so hard to submit to God? I have a few thoughts on that, and let me tell you that I’m speaking from experience not judgment. I think some of us struggle because deep down we still want control of the situation. We all know a person who can’t make a decision to save their lives, but when we make a decision it isn’t the right one. Are you truly submitting yourself to someone if you aren’t willing to take action, and then when someone else does you question their actions?
Another reason why we struggle is that we feel that we are “smarter” or have a “better handle” on the issue than someone else. It is our life, isn’t it? If we dig deeper into that question, we find that we are put on this earth for a reason, to serve God and bring others closer to him. We all have different ways that God wants us to do that but that is our true purpose.
Last, I feel that we don’t submit ourselves to God because we don’t want to bother him with our problems. Guess what have you ever been able to burden your parents with your problems? I mean really burden them. NO, NEVER. They are here to help; they love us so much that even when we make horrible mistakes that should be unforgivable they forgive us and help us work through those mistakes to get back up. God is the exact same way! He wants us to come to him with every issue that we might be facing. He wants us to ask for help as walk the path he has placed in front of us. He is there to help us, guide us, and keep us heading in the right direction. It is only when we stop asking him for help or stop taking direction that we get lost!
We talked about this yesterday in my house. What we discovered was that God is saying that the Man should be the leader of the house. He should be the one who sets a great an example for everyone else. Does that mean that as the husband it is your “job” to be the boss? NO!!!!! There are no bosses, ONLY leaders, and everyone loves working with leaders, no one likes a boss. The other thing that came up is that if the man is the “head” of the house and the wife is the “body” what does that truly mean? The body is no good without the head to lead it in the right direction, but also the head is useless without the body. Therefore, without both working together then disaster is in the near future. To me it sounds like a cartoon where the body runs one direction and the head stays in the same place.
I know that many people read these verses and forget about the last verse. They read that wives should submit to the husbands. They forget, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.” If you love your people as Christ loved the world then you would be willing to give anything to help them stay on the right path.
Things to think about!
Have you lost your way lately? How did it happen? What did you have to get back on the right path?
Are you submitting yourself to God? What could happen if you fully submitted yourself to God? Do you feel that you would be blessed even more? What have you thanked God for lately?
Prayer
God today we come to you in FULL submission of every aspect of our lives. We ask that you help us to continue to submit every intimate detail to you. We ask that you help us to become the leaders that you need us to be. Lord we understand that you love us and that you want us to be fulfilled. Lord we thank you for always understanding when we stray from time to time. We are thankful that your arms are always open to us. God we pray that you would help us come to you more often. Help us to ask for help and know that’s what you really want is for us to come you with everything. God we thank you for the opportunity to love and live life through you. Thank you,
Amen
Prayer
Lord, today we come to you with HAPPY hearts. We are so grateful that you give us the opportunity to change the lives of those around us. We are grateful that you give us the wisdom to change our lives and the lives of those around us. And you make it so simple. We can do it with a single smile. God today I would ask that you help us to smile more. The next time we see someone down, help us to smile for them. The next time we are down, help us to remember that you gave us the best gift ever. The ability to know you, your son, and the holy spirit. God, we are so grateful for everything you give us.
We ask all these things in your Precious Son's Name
Amen
A Little More
The other day I got a call from one of our clients.
I love talking to our clients so I always smile when I answer the phone.
“Hey Dan, one of my drivers is pulled over and they are saying that our permit doesn’t cover what we weigh. Isn’t that why we hire your team to make sure that these things don’t happen!”
My smile immediately vanished.
I was shocked because my team is amazing. and it’s not like them to miss something like 20,000 lbs on a permit.
So, I asked him, “Who have you been working with, and who was the one who called our team to get the permit?”
To get to the bottom of the problem I needed the details.
They gave me the details.
My next call was to my team. Then after I got the details I got them started on getting new permits to get the problem fixed. I’m a solutions guy, not an excuses guy.
But I NEED to know the real reason why it happened so that we can fix the issue.
My next call was to the driver so that I could see exactly what happened.
I knew he was going to be upset. He was pulled over and they were going to give him a HUGE ticket. I wouldn’t be happy either.
so……
I made sure not to smile when I made the call. I had a serious look on my face. As we chatted I learned that he was the person who gave his weight to our team. I asked where he got the weights from and how in the world they were off by over 20K lbs!
That’s when he told me that he might have gotten the wrong scale ticket from the weigh station where he originally weighed.
Immediately my heart leapt with joy, this is NOT our fault!
Now to get the problem resolved and get this driver back on the road was my only goal. I was not going to assign blame or make anyone feel bad.
Hey, we all make mistakes. I do it multiple times every single day.
The owner of the company shot me a text. I'm getting permits from the big guys. They won’t make these mistakes that cost me time and $$$$$.
No problem. Let me know if you need anything. We are here to help.
Well……..
After they called the “BIG Guys” they called me about 30 minutes later.
Hey, we can’t get an Idaho permit until Monday. It’s Friday night. And we need to drop this load off tomorrow afternoon.
I told him that I would NOT make any promises.
But my team went to work!
Guess what????
We got the permits that the “BIG Guys” couldn’t get.
My team had the Idaho permit in less than 20 minutes. For the right weight this time.
Here’s the point of all this.
When things don’t go right, smile. I have taught my whole team this.
That right there is how we got the permits. They smiled as they worked and it didn’t take any time at all.
Ok, there might be a little knowledge that went into this too. Lol
Next time you need anything DOT, don’t call the “Big Guys” , call the team who can get it done!
Dan Greer
