Family Matters: Hindrances to Submission (Part 2)

A third hindrance to submission is fear. Fear might be expressed in this way, “I don’t think my husband can be trusted with my life, the lives of my children, and the future of our family. I am afraid he cannot handle the responsibility if I really submit to him and help to establish him as the leader of our home.” In submitting to her husband, a woman recognizes that she is submitting to God and trusting Him as the power behind her husband.

Another fear might be expressed like this: “I am afraid if I really yield myself to my husband, I will lose my life.” True life and purpose is found when we live to please and serve another. A marriage relationship should be the place we model “dying to self to live for another.” Only this attitude, which should first be modeled by the husband, can manifest in selfless behavior. Desperately holding on to your life by refusing to submit to your husband means missing the life and glory God has for you.

The fourth hindrance to biblical submission is individualism. The spirit of individualism, or independence, is everywhere in the world today, and many Christian women have imbibed of it. It is a very subtle thing, and can be seen in a woman’s desire for a career apart from her husband (nothing wrong for a woman to work), or her desire to keep her maiden name after marriage, and can even masquerade as a personal “call” to a particular ministry.

The “pride of life” to which Eve succumbed in the Garden of Eden was really nothing more than this spirit of individualism, this desire to be something apart from God and His divine order, to be wise, to know all that God knows. Its fruit is a delusion, for the promised independence is nothing more than submission to a different head—Satan. We are all “slaves to whom we obey, whether of sin and death, or of obedience to righteousness” (Romans 6:16). 1 Peter 2:19b says, “For a man or woman is a slave to whatever has mastered them.” Eve discovered slavery to sin (independence) much more demanding than obedience to God and His law.