As I was driving home from a lovely lunch with my beautiful daughter I was thinking about a conversation I had after a meeting at the church this morning.You see, I want to make sure that I get the message right that God has for me... so I am going to present to the Elders of our church what I think God is calling me to do, they then will pray about it and whatever they are going to come back with I will accept.
I am going to do this because the bible tells me that the Elders have been appointed by God to be in authority over the community of believers... since I do not have a husband anymore, another one that would be in authority over me
(and yes, I have NO trouble with that at all...you will see why later) I feel so much more that I need to have the Elders pray and have the final say about what God really is planning for me in this regard.
In today's world the words "authority" and "submit" have such a negative feeling attached to it, but really, like any other "rule" in the bible, God put it in place to protect us.
The Dictionary :
to submit: to yield oneself to the will or authority of another...to defer to or consent to abide by the opinion or authority of another.....
authority: power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior
So let's look at this... as Christians we believe that God is in authority over us, that we need to obey Him and that we will be blessed by Him for doing that. The bible is full of scriptures that tell us to do just that and, the bible is full of verses that tell us what will happen if we don't...
There are verses about children obeying their parents, servant's their masters...and then there are those that most of us don't really like to look at anymore... us women, we do not like the one about wives called to submit, yield to, the authority of their husbands..( Ephesians 5:22-33)
For me, even with a husband that did not really follow the Lord, eventually this became more easy and I even considered it a blessing... I think, no matter if our marriage is exactly what God intended it to be, a union of man and woman, equally valued by God, made for different roles but the authority and with this the responsibility and accountability to God ultimately lies with the husband... Hallelujah.... and I mean it.. This is not meant to be a card blanche for the husband to dictate and boss around his wife, not at all, it also does not diminish the value of the opinions and convictions of the wives, as helpmates we are called to speak into the lives of our husbands, lovingly giving our input... after all, we are TOGETHER portraying the image of God, we both lack certain characteristics of God that the other has, but like I said, ULTIMATELY we are to submit to a husband, who together with us will have sought the Lord and His direction. I cannot imagine a place I would rather be than under the umbrella of protection of a godly husband, the one who would lay his life down for me willingly, like Christ did for the church.
As for me, I trusted God for that protection and still submitted to my husband when push came to shove and God gave me tremendous peace when I did.
As a single woman who wants to live to please and honor God and wants to be obedient to Him I am now looking to the Elders for guidance and ultimately a "Yes" or a "No" for my ministry to go ahead or not.
In Acts we find many verses that tell us about the role of Elders, the appointment of Paul and Barnabas as missionaries through the spiritual leaders who had prayed, fasted and worshipped God and then heard from Him, ( Acts 13:1,3-4) and the appointment of Elders by Paul and Barnabas ( Acts 14:23), of Paul and Barnabas returning to the Elders that appointed them and laid hands on them to send them off when a dispute arose, for guidance and wisdom. (Acts 15:1-4)
Many more, for example in Acts 16:4 decisions reached by the Elders and Apostles in Jerusalem were delivered to the people of Jerusalem to obey....
and on and on it goes...
I NEED to hear from God because I do not want to lean on my own understanding but rather be obedient to God and follow His leading. In most cases the bible is quite clear on what we need to do, but when there is a calling, I firmly believe that God will be faithful and speak through the men that He has called to be the overseers of the church that I belong to.
I am thankful that He has given us all that we need for godliness.... He better, because we know where it leads when I run off on my own... ;)
