Unique Original Articles » Submitting to LOVE

When training our kids, we need to teach them about submission. Submission, is a word very rarely used together with LOVE. We think of leaders forcing their subjects into submission. We think of submitting to rules, or being squeezed in various ways to obey. We think of manipulation and circumstances, dominating us into submission, but submission to LOVE, or BECAUSE of love, seems strange! Love is generally perceived as a kind, and gentle thing. Certainly not a force, and certainly not something that would bring about submission! The Bible, however, speaks of us freely submitting, because of God's love! It is never God, squeezing us into submission, but us giving it voluntarily, that is what He desires!

This submission thing is a strange thing! We are not squeezed into submission by God! That would be contrary to His character! He doesn’t go about humbling, and embarrassing us, dominating our submission. Instead He asks us to submit out of our own free will! We do so, because of who He is, and who we believe Him to be!
The One we are submitting to, IS Love! That is why we submit! But we also yield out of love for HIM, and to Him, as well as unto others!
It is Love Himself who causes us to submit, for the sake of His love for us!
We submit because of faith. We delight in His love for us! We believe in Who He is: LOVE!
That is why we yield, because we are sure He wants the best for us!
Not only do we believe that He is love and wants the best for us, we also know in Him, that He is really capable, and able to make the good happen, that He intends for us!

We do not usually submit naturally. There seems to be a rebel in each of us, that unless it is tamed or willfully controlled by us will not allow us to submit! We need to learn this submission. It is sometimes simply called self discipline, and certainly there is some of that! But it is greater than that, because of it’s motivation: LOVE! This is something we need to learn! We need to train our children in this by lovingly guiding them. We also need to control them. When we model the loving authority to them, they discover from a young age the self control that love puts on them, and then the battle is more easily won later on! We are NOT loving our children when we allow them to be unkind or undisciplined or making foolish choices.

To insist on respect and righteousness, might seem difficult, but it is the most loving path and will pay off!
You provide a safe training area, and practise for what is ahead for them! It is a ability they cannot do without!

Elsa Basson is a Home Schooling Mother of six children. See more of her articles at http://www.raising-children-who-love-god.info .
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