Day 13 of Beauty

Beauty of Submission

Whew, that has honestly been a difficult word for me to say or type for most of my life.  God's been working it out of me though and I've been able to soften to it. Slowly...very slowly.  I'm guessing I'm not the only American female with an issue with the word submission.

God was stirring my heart earlier today about the topic of obedience and what a beautiful feature that is when someone walks in it. However, during church service tonight and again as I come to him for this message he is speaking submission over me.  Makes sense considering part of Pastor Courtney's (Freedom Life Church, Hampton) message was about all three parts of us aligning so the Holy Spirit within us can move.  

Submission is all about letting the Holy Spirit within us take over and direct us. Moving more in rhythm with him instead of forcefully with our own motivations and desires.  It creates such a bright beauty within the person that it becomes a beacon of light attracting all those who are seeking healing. 

I think about how I was not too long ago, I was so hard, so aggressive, so  forceful.  I considered myself tough, a bad ass, etc. For the most part I was excepted to be as a woman in the military, and a jet engine mechanic at that.  Yet, my self induced hardening started so much younger. It started as a defense mechanism due to situations I was in, mostly family issues, peer and bully issues. I didn't consciously choose to harden my heart but it happened anyways to protect it.  Now so many years later God has done so much to my heart and has been massaging it to make it soft.  I'm actually to the point where I am actually begging him to take away all the hardened areas and areas that I numb.

Why? Because I can see all the beauty in how he reveals himself to me when I submit it to him and give him all that I can of me.  I crave more and more of him and less of me.

Now, I know he's working on me submitting to others as well.... What can I say, we're all works in progress :)

Romans 12:1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

Eph 5:21 Submitting to one another our of reverence for Christ.