Submitting to Our Fathers

***Before we begin today, I want to strongly encourage you girls to listen to a message posted today on girl talk titled, “A Modest Heart” by Janelle Bradshaw. It’s about 30 minutes long…I was able to listen to it today while I was cleaning. What are you doing today? Turn up the speakers and listen to this excellent message!

I don’t know about you, but there have been many times that I’ve foolishly thought that cultivating a heart of a Proverbs 31 woman is going to happen immediately on the day I become a wife and mother. I have come to realize through many examples and teaching that cultivating this heart is something that takes a lot of practice! Though I’m still in a season of singleness and am not a wife or mother yet, I do believe that as a daughter I am called to be a portrait of some of the roles that the Proverbs 31 woman displayed. Not in the way I will serve and relate to my future husband or children, but in the ways I relate to my dad as his daughter.

The Bible teaches in Ephesians 5 that wives are to submit to their husbands, as to the Lord and in Ephesians 6 it teaches that children are to obey their parents in the Lord. I believe our call as daughters is to submit to our fathers and obey all that they ask of us until (Lord willing) they hand us off to our future husbands. Just as we are to obey the commandments that God has set out for His children, we are to submit to and obey our fathers. Carolyn Mahaney writes, “We read that the woman was created to be her husband’s helper; (Genesis 2:18) then in 1 Corinthians 11:9 Paul writes that man was not created for woman, but woman for man. In Titus 2 we find that the list of instructions for the younger woman begins and ends with their relationship to their husbands. Proverbs 31:12 states, “She does him good and not harm, all the days of her life. And you do not know what the Lord has planned for your future. Your doing good to your husband could be the very means God uses to soften his heart toward you and toward Himself.”

Everywhere the word “husband” was inserted I believe that the word “father” could be there as well. God has ordained that fathers are to be the head of the family just as Christ is the head of the Church. (Ephesians 5:23) Personally in my life, my dad has ALWAYS know what was/is best for me. Even though I don’t always realize it, in the end he is always right!

Here are the top three things that I try to remember as a daughter when striving to serve and submit my dad:

1. HELP my Proverbs 31 mom in all her daily tasks of serving my dad and family
2. COMMUNICATE to him that I respect and honor him
3. LISTEN when he gives instruction because he always knows what’s best

Submitting to Our Parents

Our home and our relationships there are the training ground for submission to all others, including our future submission to our future husbands (Ephesians 5:22).

Elizabeth George says, “Submission is a challenge straight from God to you. It’s a measure of your spiritual maturity. Why? Because no one can make you submit to anyone else. You must choose to do it yourself. Your parents can’t make you, your friends can’t make you, and your youth leader can’t make you. No, you have to decide yourself to submit to your parents. And here’s the shocker—If you aren’t submitting to your parents now, you aren’t submitting to God, and you’ll probably have trouble fulfilling God’s desire for you to submit to your future husband’s leadership. That’s pretty far reaching, isn’t it?”

Next week we’ll dive a little bit deeper into submission. Have a wonderful weekend!