Then the Lord directed my gaze to the first part of that verse Fear God and the King. WHAT in the world does fearing God and the King have to do with those that are given to change? EVERYTHING! Those that are always changing have no anchor. They have no stability. They often have none or very little direction or at least they don't have it very long until they change direction again. They are swept about with every wind of doctrine. They make decisions based up their feelings and impulses . . . a BAD reason to make decisions. They often do get destroyed. Those people NEED someone who can ground them. Someone who can help them focus. Someone who can help them get things done.
When we fear God that is not just talking about actually fear that he could strike me dead any moment kind of fear. It is also respect. Submission. There I said it . . . the S word! Submitting to God because of fear of Him but also respect. We get so caught up in the fact that God is love that we like to forget he can strike us dead at any moment. He is so powerful he can send a fireball to consume us or even just think and poof we are gone! God is someone we should fear. That fear is a good thing. That fear can keep us in line.
Then the bible goes on to tell us to fear the king . . . here in America we don't have a king but that doesn't get us off the hook. That king is representing the authorities placed BY GOD in our life! Lets talk about some of those authorities. They are definitely the president, the laws, police officers, etc. But on a more personal level it would be our boss, our pastor, our pastor's wife (if she is involved in a ministry that is over us), deacons, some might have sunday school superintendents, trustees in the church, and before all that our husbands. For the sake of this S word I'm only going to talk about God and our husbands.
How are we to submit to God? God tells us in Proverbs 3:5, 6 to Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thy own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. We are to submit to God in every way, every place, every attitude, every word, everything we wear, or eat, or go. Basically in every single moment of my life I need to acknowledge God and that He is LORD of my life. He is the Ruler of my life and whatever he would want me to do, eat, wear, go, say, etc. I do exactly that. I know that we fail in this but if we try to do this I know it pleases God. The more we do this the easier it gets in doing this. God asks us to submit to Him in EVERY area of our life. He has promises that if we do he will direct our paths. If God directs my path I WON'T take a wrong step. I won't make a mistake. I will be successful because God tells us in Jeremiah that he knows the thoughts he has toward us, thoughts to prosper us and give us peace. (I think paraphrased there so it is not the KJV but it's also not another version just my memory.) God wants us to have success and he has guaranteed it under the perimeters of our submission to Him in EVERY single area of our life!
Now how about them husbands of ours? How are we to submit to them? In every area they ask us to. See God sees and knows everything about us. He counts the hair on our heads, he knows our thoughts and desires. He knows what we are going to do before we do it. God is powerful like that. So that's why we submit in EVERY single area of our life, because he knows if we don't. But our husbands are human. They can't know any of that. They may know our desires some of the time but not all the time. So how do we submit to our husbands? In every way they ask us to. Some wives may have to submit in what they wear whereas other husbands have no clue and could care less what their wives wear as long as they are not flaunting themselves for the world to see. Some women may have to submit on what they cook for their husbands where other husbands don't have much of a palette and just don't really care what they eat. (i.e. I am NEVER allowed to mix my food together in what is called a casserole. I married a Southern boy and they don't mix their food. But when he is gone or am at a potluck where I know a dear lady is bringing fried chicken, I will sometimes make a casserole. ;) ) Some women may have to submit in their finances when some husbands ask their wives to be in control of the money. This type of submission does not cause us to lose our voice, rather it helps give us security, safety, boundaries that protect us. For the most part my husband doesn't rule every area of my life but when he asks me to submit, if I want to be right with God, I will.
Now, do our husbands makes mistakes? YES! What if they ask you to miss church? drink alcohol? wear something inappropriate? to not tithe? etc. That's wrong. Then you do as Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego did you submit to the consequences. These three boys disobeyed the king and when the king said the penalty for not bowing down to my idol is being thrown in the fiery furnace they willingly went. God spared their life and as a result the King was influenced to change the law so everyone was to worship God. They stood against the king but submitted to the consequences. If my husband asked me to miss church I would hopefully sweetly tell him why I thought that was wrong and ask him if I could go. If he still didn't change his mind I would do what God wants me to accepting the consequences. However, there is a disclaimer here: if my husband EVER beat me, I'd throw his butt in jail faster than he could blink. You don't have to put up with that! That's not letting him break the law. But more often than not if we approach our husbands with something we want to do that we know God would have us do they can be swayed.
I remember a time when my husband didn't want to tithe to a church we were attending because he didn't believe in the church. He also said he didn't want to because we weren't making enough to tithe. I had a grocery budget of $50 a week. I told him if he wasn't going to tithe I was going to take it from the grocery money. He said whatever. For two weeks I tithed $42 and God provided for all our needs and many of our wants! As a result we now tithe every time we get paid and often more than a tithe! Sure I went against my husband but I had the right attitude and accepted the consequence of only have $8 a week to feed 5 people. As a result my husband saw the error of his ways and changed. I'm really thankful it only took 2 weeks because I was having to get REAL creative with the menu!
In conclusion we are to submit to God in EVERY area and to our husbands in every way they ask us to. Submission to God ALWAYS comes first. So we submit to God and submit to the consequences of sometimes having to go against our husbands. But as we do we often find that our husbands come around. The world portrays them as dumb and ignorant but they aren't. They are worthy of us submitting to them but also God commanded us. We don't need a call when we have a command! Submitting to God can be very liberating! It doesn't cause us to lose our voice but often to find a better voice! We still maintain our individuality but we often gain stability! The S word isn't so bad of a word after all!
