Journey to Surrender

Don’t worry, this post is not about what my somewhat sensational tongue-in-cheek title implies.

However, the S and F words I will be discussing might incite an even stronger reaction than their four-letter-word counterparts. I’m talking about submission and freedom. I’m following up from my last post, A Picture of Submission, where I talked about the many wrong pictures we have of what submission looks like.

Today, I want to dispel one other erroneous, yet pervasive notion about submission. That wrongful notion is that marital submission is somehow akin to enslavement. In fact, I argue that the opposite is true: submission actually brings freedom and power.

Don’t buy it? Read on!

Rick Warren, in a post on his Purpose Drive Blog, says this,

This is true worship: bringing pleasure to God as we give ourselves completely to him.

Of course a wife who lives in submission to her husband is not “worshiping” him, but we do know that her submission in marriage is to mirror her submission to the Lord (Ephesians 5:22). In fact, a wife gives her husband pleasure by giving herself completely to him.

But what does she get out of the bargain?


In giving ourselves fully to God, we enjoy the freedom and power that He offers us in exchange.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:1

The martial parallel of this verse means that when a wife gives herself fully to her husband, as to the Lord, she no longer has to strive to earn his love or fight against his leadership. She knows that she already has his love! All that he has is hers also. So, instead of striving to get his love and acceptance she finds joy from doing things for her husband out of his love and for his pleasure. This is a huge paradigm shift for many.

Submission to the Lord also makes us free to enjoy unbounded intimacy with him. God’s love and grace free us from shame and guilt, so that we have the freedom to come to him boldly and confidently:

In him and through faith in him [Jesus] we may approach God with freedom and confidence.

Ephesians 3:12

So too, a wife who yields herself to her husband has the freedom to be naked and unashamed with him. I’m talking about the freedom to be who she really is: spiritually, intellectually, emotionally and physically – naked yet without any fear or shame before him.

The truth is that a wife will often feel the need to control her husband as a result of fear or shame: fear that she won’t get what she wants or feels entitled to, fear that she won’t be loved and cared for as she desires, driven by shame over her own self-hatred or perceived flaws. The truth is that trying to control other people or manipulate your circumstances makes you a slave to your fears.

Submission, on the other hand, releases you from the need to control, from the natural tendency self-protect and self-promote, and the desire to hide your weaknesses. Submission gives you freedom and peace in a way little else can. As you allow yourself to fall completely into the arms of your husband, you are free to enjoy the blissful  peace that his love and protection provide.

Freedom is Not License

Now let me pause here to remind you that there is a dramatic difference between freedom and license. The freedom that comes from submission does not imply the license to do what you please, how you please, when you please. For more on this, see my post, “Liberty and License in Marriage.”


The other distortion that goes along with the “submission = enslavement” notion is that the wife loses all her power: the power to make her own decisions, the power to be who she is and find fulfillment, the power to reach her destiny.

First of all, let me point out that because biblical submission can only come by choice, as a freely given gift, the power ultimately lays with the wife. It is hers to decide.

Second, I see the marriage relationship as one where power is exchanged rather than shared. Rather than trying to split it all down the middle, 50-50, each should give 100% of themselves to the other. When you both have the understanding that "All I have and all that I am is yours," the question of who has the power becomes moot.

Don’t confuse power and authority. I believe a husband has a God-given place of authority in marriage, but the power that comes with that authority is to be used to serve and bless his wife. Ultimately, he does all in his power to see her fulfilled and to see her reach her destiny in God.

There is also great power in submission, but it is power of a different form. Rather than the direct power that comes from authority, it’s the power of ravishing your husband’s heart. It’s the power of deep and abiding intimacy. It’s the power of propelling your marriage to new heights and of helping to propel your husband into his own destiny in God.

In truth, in submission you are exchanging perceived power for real power. You give up the power to control your husband, which you don’t really have anyway, and you gain the power to capture his heart completely.

You give up the power to live independently from your husband, which you gave up when you decided to marry him anyway, and you gain the power to that comes from joining yourself intimately to him in every way.

There are other exchanges of power to be found in submission, but hopefully you get the idea. When you cede elements of your power to your husband, you get back an altogether different and better kind of power – real power.

What is your own experience with discovering the freedom and power of submission?

It’s been a while since I’ve done a Wives Only Wednesday (WoW) post and even longer since I’ve touched on the topic of submission. Yes that.

Still reading?

I’ve been inspired to come back to this much-debated, much-maligned and much-misunderstood topic by two things. First, we’ve been covering this foundational concept in the marriage small group my wife and I are leading at our church, where we’ve had some great discussion.

Second, I’ve been reading a most excellent series on submission by Lori Byerly, aka The Generous Wife.  I’m doing a post-by-post summary of her thoughtful series over on my Facebook page along with some questions that I hope will spur some interesting dialogue. I encourage you to join the conversation there.

Today I want to challenge your thinking on submission by dispelling a few wrong-headed comparisons that people make concerning God’s design for marriage.

Boss-Employee – This is perhaps the most common misconception I’ve seen. This metaphor leads to thinking that submission is akin to being “managed” or having decisions made for you. The truth is that when the Bible says that a “husband is the head of his wife,” the Greek word there (kephale) does not have anything to do with him being the boss.

Captain-First Mate – The problem with this metaphor is that is makes the husband-wife relationship mostly about who gives and who takes the orders. It also implies the kind of blind obedience that is called for in a military operation, but that has nothing to do with marriage.

Master-Slave – Probably the most extreme interpretation, the master-slave metaphor gets invoked mostly by those attempting to make the Bible look extreme and ridiculous.

Parent-Child – This metaphor is just plain wrong in the way it subordinates and diminishes a wife’s role. It wrongly implies immaturity and inability on a wife’s part, and it lacks the proper acknowledgement of the kind of partnership marriage is meant to be. The parents’ authority over their children is not akin to a husbands authority in marriage.


Ephesians 5 invokes the head-body metaphor to describe the marriage relationship, so it is one we cannot easily dismiss.

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

Ephesians 5:22-24 NIV

As with any metaphor, there are limits to the analogy.

As someone in our small group pointed out, I don’t think it’s accurate to say the husband does the “thinking” and the wife does the “doing.” Again, that’s too close to the giving/following orders paradigm that just doesn’t work for me. Likewise, I don’t think it is accurate to say that, as the head, the husband is the “command and control” center of the marriage and the wife just executes the will of the husband/head. Nope, that just doesn’t ring true.

I do like what the head-body metaphor says about oneness and inseparability. A head without a body is useless (and dead); likewise a body without the head. The two are intimately and permanently joined to their mutual benefit.

I also like what the metaphor says about the head looking out for the body. For example, when the body feels pain, the head reacts by directing the body away from the pain. The head is all about the protection, nurture, development and sustenance of the body.

The truth is that the husband-wife relationship is unlike any other. God created it to be unique, and that’s why so many of our metaphors fall short.

There is one metaphor, actually more of an analogy, that I think God had in mind from the very beginning of time. It’s the one Paul spoke of in Ephesians 5. It’s is the one that strikes me as providing the greatest insight on the martial relationship. I’m talking about how the relationship between husband and wife resembles the relationship between Christ and the church.

This is the great mystery of marriage and, for me, the very key to understanding God’s design for it.

This picture more than any other sheds light on God’s design for marriage:

• Clearly the oneness we share in marriage resembles the oneness we have with Christ. Implicit is the spiritual union that is part of the marriage covenant, as well as the knitting together of two souls.
• Husbands are directed to lavish unrelenting love upon their wives, just as Christ does on us. Further, husbands are called to lay down their lives for their wives, emulating Christs sacrificial love.
• Wives are encouraged to submit to their husbands in a manner that reflects their submission to Christ. (Don’t carry the metaphor too far and make husbands out to be gods of their home).
• I like how our oneness with Jesus does not diminish who we are, but rather brings us into the fullness of who were designed to be. So too in marriage.

There are a whole bunch of other implications to the Christ-church comparisons. Offer your ideas with a comment below.

Don’t be misled by the title of this post. I’m am definitely BIG on commitment in marriage. It's essential!

A while back I shared my thoughts  on the importance of commitment in a post entitled “Ceremony vs. Covenant.”   Here is what I said then and what I still believe

It seems we’ve mixed up what marriage really is. Marriage isn’t a certificate or a ceremony. The paper and the pomp are but impermanent symbols of what should be a much deeper and more lasting covenant. Marriage is to be a holy and genuine commitment to live as a husband and wife, growing evermore toward being inseparably one in body, soul and spirit.

It is the marriage covenant that forms the basis for our commitment. There is a Dietrich Bonhoeffer quote that I really love. It comes from a letter he wrote to a newlywed couple:

It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.

The point he is making is that we need to remind ourselves that marriage is a covenant and a commitment and allow that to fuel our love for one another. We have turned it around backwards in modern times such that in seasons when giddy feelings are hard to muster, we think it must be time to bail. That is not how it is supposed to work.

So yes, I firmly believe that commitment is hugely important. But as important as I think commitment is to a lasting marriage, commitment alone is not sufficient to sustain a marriage for the long haul.

I believe it also takes two other important ingredients: faith and a willingness to change.


What is faith? The Bible puts it like this:

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

Hebrews 11:1

Why is faith important in marriage? Because sometimes things aren’t going to look like you think they should. Sometimes what you hope for might not bear much resemblance to what you are actually seeing. That’s when you need to look at your marriage with the eyes of faith, believing that God has the power and desire to make your marriage all it can be.

God is very pro-marriage. He is very very much FOR your marriage. He wants more than for you to just hang in there because you said you would at the altar, as great as that is. No he wants you to have hope in him.

God, the author of your marriage, is our source of hope and our reason to have faith.


As important as commitment and faith are, they aren’t enough either. The third ingredient that is essential for a lasting marriage is a willingness to change.

You can have a 100% commitment to your marriage and have all the faith in the world that it will turn out like you hope, but sometimes, in order to make your marriage all it can be, you will have to be the one to change. .

I know it’s tempting to think, “If my husband would just do X, I know our marriage would be so much better,” or “If my wife would just do Y, I know our marriage would be great.” You can believe for X or Y with all your heart.

Consider, however, that maybe your spouse’s lack of X or Y might not be the actual problem. The thing between where your marriage is and where it could be might be that something in you needs to change.

Are you willing to ask God to change you however he wants to in order to strengthen your marriage? Are you willing to let him adjust your expectations to align them with his idea of what your marriage should be?

What do you think of my three-fold formula for a lasting marriage? If every marriage was founded on a firm commitment to the covenant, an enduring faith and a willingness to be changed, would that be enough to make marriage last?

Do you have some other "keys" for an enduring marriage?



PS - Call it prophetic if you want, but just as I was putting the finishing touches on this post, I got the following Tweet from @JoyceMeyer :

Take some bold steps of faith and change anything the Lord leads you to change.

Thanks, Lord, for that little bit of divine confirmation.

• Best of Intentions from Marriage Life
• Which Kind of Commitment Do You Have by Lori Lowe at Marriage Gems

It's true that keeping your marriage headed consistently in the right direction can be challenging. The good news is that you can help make sure your relationship stays on course by employing three essential tools for marital navigation.

I’ve covered two of these tools already in previous posts:

• In Part 1, Watchfulness, I explained why it is hugely important to pay close attention to your marriage.
• In Part 2, Transparency, I posed that the level of intimacy in your marriage will be capped by the degree of transparency you share.

The third and final component of what I am referring to as the “GPS system for your marriage” is Accountability.


The first dimension of accountability is in your personal relationship with Jesus. While I’m dead set against the notion that we can “earn” God’s favor by jumping through spiritual hoops, I do believe that the level of intimacy a husband and wife personally share with Jesus individually directly influences the intimacy level in their marriage.Your spiritual walk is the foundation of your marriage - keep it strong.

The second degree of accountability is for husband and wife to be accountable to one another. This basically involves being answerable to each other for your actions and attitudes. In the partnership that is a surrendered marriage, transparency and watchfulness work together to enable accountability. As you pursue together the kind of marriage you want to have, it is good and right to speak lovingly to each other of what your marriage can be. This is absolutely NOT an invitation to nit-pick each other to death or to keep score on each other. Rather, in an open and honoring atmosphere, it's about helping each to love the other well.

The third and final area of accountability is accountability with other couples. Link up with a few other couples whose marriages you admire and spend time together. Give them permission to speak into your marriage. As your marriage matures, be willing to mentor other couples in their marriage journey.


I think accountability has gotten a bit of a bad rap. And the reason so many view it negatively is because it’s often tended toward the “someone looking over your shoulder, waiting for you to screw up so they can smack you back in line” kind of thing. That’s not at all how I view accountability. The problem with this kind of sin-focused accountability is that it focuses almost entirely on the negative. By its nature it draws us toward looking in the wrong direction – at sin.

I like to think instead in terms of grace-focused accountability. By that I mean rather than being held accountable against the negative, let’s hold each other accountable toward the positive. In a surrendered marriage, we hold Jesus up as the standard and focus on becoming more like him. It naturally keeps our focus in the right direction – on Jesus.

So rather than thinking of accountability as a weapon to be used against you (or for you to use against your spouse), think of it as a tool to help you transform your way of living to be more Christ-like: full of life and truth, full of selfless love, full of trust and joy and peace.

When you think of accountability, think relationship instead of rules.

It’s time for you to chime in. What are some positive, grace-based ways that you and your spouse have found to hold each other accountable in your marriage? Do you have a mentor couple? Are you acting as one?


Further Reading:

Erin at Mystery32 has a great post on the importance of community in supporting and strengthening marriages entitled Don’t Do it Alone! . Check it out!

Did you know that Journey to Surrender now has a Facebook page! It’s got lots of extra  marriage-related stuff like videos, links, news stories, and conversations not found on my blog. Come on over and let’s meet up!

In honor of National Marriage Week, our friends at MarriageWorks have put together a FREE ebook of marriage encouragement and inspiration entitled, "Stay Connected."  I'm proud to be among the 18 contributing authors for this great resource.  I hope you'll read my page 4 article entitled "What If" and let me know what you think!

Also be sure to check out my Facebook Page, where I'm posting lots of cool stuff all week long in honor of National Marriage Week that speaks to the importance of marriage in our society today. 

Lastly, click on over to the National Marriage Week website and see what the global celebration of marriage is all about and how you can help.

From February 7th to 14th every year— is a collaborative effort to encourage many diverse groups to strengthen individual marriages, reduce the divorce rate, and build a stronger marriage culture, which in turn helps curtail poverty and benefits children. Together we can make more impact than working alone. Please join with others to host special events, launch a marriage class or home group, or place local advertising or news stories during National Marriage Week USA.