Reading God’s Word this morning in 1 Thessalonians, I’m compelled by Paul’s example to this church.  He was so submitted in his lifetime to God, so bowed before the Holy God of the Word, that his words and actions were in turn so packed with biblical, tough, lasting trust and love.  He cares so intimately for God’s people and is so fully devoted to God’s ways, and God uses His devotion with Luke and other companions to produce His lasting purposes among His people.

Yesterday, I was so encouraged by our fellowship with other like-minded believers in our young marrieds Sunday School class at Central Presbyterian Church.  We have been learning about God’s good intentions for marriage and parenting, and yesterday we were blessed to hear from a wonderful Christian couple about their marriage.  The husband and wife were so evidently on the same page before the Lord, and they both were evidently impacted by personal walks with God and a united personal walk with God together.  The husband talked about being daily engaged with by the Holy Spirit as he sits before the Lord and reads His Word and prays and listens to God’s leading.  He talked about how God matches each man with a wife who is perfectly suited for him, and how in their marriage his wife often complements his hearing of God’s direction with her hearing of God’s direction.  Their humility really stood out, but it wasn’t just a passive downplaying of themselves.  It was a humility that had the natural God-given results of love and joy.

Men often slide into two views of submission around the topic of marriage: We either think our wives could be submitting more to us than they are, or we think the church pushes this onto women too much and we defend them and feel we should be submitting to them more than we are.  It’s not quite this simplistic, but it is somewhat true.  We all, men and women alike, tend to either argue that women “in our day and age” could be submitting more or submitting less to their husbands.

The husband yesterday however modelled for our group something that is far more evident in God’s Word, which is the importance of men being in submission to God.  When men are in submission to the Lord and daily listening to Him, they come to hear His common grace wisdom being given to them in other ways in addition to His Word.  God gives us wisdom through a wife’s discernment.  God gives us wisdom through a friend’s careful concerns shared as trust is built in a healthy and lasting friendship.  God gives us wisdom through the circumstances and consequences of good or bad decisions we have made.  God gives us wisdom through the smarting pain of conviction over our sin as we sit in His holy presence.  And, the list goes on and on.  God gives us the most distilled and pure wisdom however both as men and women as we submit fully to His Word and Spirit and the various other means and relationships He has placed in our lives.  As we look for GOD in every avenue and path of this life, we encounter Him as worthy of our full attention and fully pleasing to encounter at every turn the more submitted we are to His good pleasure.

Enjoy your week, friends!

– Torrey