This is not a serious biblical post. You won’t gain any meaningful insight from this. Don’t let the title deceive you.
For the first time in my life I had to submit to my husband on a matter that I did not wish to submit to him.
Let me back up since the word “submission” has such a bad rap these days. God commands wives to submit to their husbands. This simply means that we trust that their wisdom and discernment are from the Lord, therefore, when we submit to them, we are ultimately submitting to Christ. Submission does not mean I slave over a hot stove all day long because my husband demands a home cooked meal by 4:30 everyday. It also does not mean that I give up my own opinions, dreams, ideas, etc. It does not mean that we can’t have a discussion when we disagree on a matter. It is not a “my way or the highway” type of relationship. I just simply trust that my husband is in a deep relationship with Christ and his “commands” have already been prayed over and thoroughly thought through (say that 10 times fast). Notice that in the verse above husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loves the church. A godly husband would never expect his wife to submit to something that wouldn’t glorify God because at that point he would not be loving her as Christ loves the church. Thankfully, Brent and I agree on the important stuff 99.9% of the time, so I have never (until now) had a hard time submitting to what he says.
Phew. Anyway.
You want to know what submission boils down to for me?
Get this…
Power sliding doors.
That’s right. Those darn power sliding doors on my van are the only thing in our entire marriage that has tempted me to put my foot down and resist submission.
And try I did, but I did not win.
You see, we are in a sticky situation with our cars. Brent still drives our first car (yes, our first car because it was his when he turned 16, then mine when I turned 16). And that’s a completely different post for another day. Unfortunately, it’s not going to run forever and could actually die any day now. Of course, we’ve been saying that for the past 5 years and it’s still going strong…even thought it’s been totaled twice and caught on fire once. But again, that’s for a another day. Obviously it’s in our best interest to find Brent another car, but we don’t need to add another car payment. Thankfully, my father-in-law is a car dealer and can get a us a deal if we trade in our van. Sigh.
My van that I swore I would NEVER drive and here I am upset that I have to give it up. I get a little attached to my cars. And by a little I mean A LOT. They practically become family members to me. So much that I whispered on the phone in the van the other day when I was talking about the pros to getting another vehicle.
Our van is getting a little high on mileage and possibly has a cracked radiator. So even though it will be paid off in nearly a year, it’s about to cost some serious maintenance fees. And no, I don’t know what I’m talking about, but this is what I’ve been told by Brent and my dad. So, just pretend I know what in the world a cracked radiator is.
Bottom Line: we must replace Brent’s car and I can’t keep my van.
Solution: Trade in the van and get a family car (van or SUV) and a cheap but dependable car
It just so happens that there aren’t any vans in stock where my FIL works that I care to own. But, there is an SUV that I fell in love with over the weekend. And of all the back and forth, wishy washy discussions we’ve had the past few days over the van vs. SUV…it all boils down to one hang up. The power sliding doors. Space is another issue, but we only have one child (and if you read this post, only God knows our future for more kids or not) and in the past 3 years we’ve only needed all the space in the van once…when we moved. Space is disguised as the issue, but the real issue that has tempted me to demand I get my way is the power sliding doors. Deep down, I know that Brent is trying to make a wise decision for us financially. But I just LOVE my PSD!!! Such a hard convenience to give up.
But you know what the Lord did? He put me in my place and asked me, “If you can’t give up the convenience of power sliding doors, how could you ever give up much more than that to follow Me to the ends of the earth?”
And, well, that’s when I decided to submit. Because I don’t want the convenience of power sliding doors to stand in the way of me visiting orphans.
We turned in our van and brought home an SUV.
Here’s the best part…
The power sliding door on the right side of the van QUIT WORKING the day we turned it in!!!
Haha…see my husband does know what he’s talking about and it is a GOOD thing for me to submit to him!
AMEN!
A Merry Heart 