Submission

What a difficult time that we have with this word. Submission means the act of submitting to the power of another or the state of being submissive or compliant; meekness. However this is exactly how we are asked to live our lives if we are Christ followers. This does not mean a life of codependency, allowing people to have their way with us and never having limits or boundaries for people who would hurt us. No, this is a way of life that submits to the belief and conviction that God is in control. It submits to the belief that even the most horrid of circumstances in our lives are being used to teach us something about how to live. Life gives exams and if we do not pass those exams it will give them again. For example, people get married again and again only to find themsevles in the same situation. They did not understand the exam the first time. People have problems with other relationships and jobs over and over, probably because they did not pass the exam the first time. Our crosses to bear are there to teach us something. If I learn from them I "pass" the exam and learn how to not get myself in that situation again.
However most of us attempt to "run our own lives." We actually think we can control everything that is going on in our lives, so we try. When we do we complain about the life exams we are given by God. We fail to act in submission and allow things to be perfect as God designed. Rather we complain, shake our fist at God, and say to ourselves this can't be right I must do something. This does not take away the emotions and the pain that makes some of our crosses hard to carry. Sometimes we must drag them or sometimes we collapse under the weight of them.
However, will we find submission and know that God is working all things for our good? Will we be able to have the mind of Christ and allow God to have God's way. Will we trust that even though it appears that we do not have what we think we need right now, maybe we do not need it right now or at all, or it will come only when we truly need it? This is submission - to allow God to have God's way and trust that it is as it should be.

Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.
Because of that obedience, God lifted him high and honored him far beyond anyone or anything, ever, so that all created beings in heaven and on earth—even those long ago dead and buried—will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father. Philippians 2:5-11

Namaste'