You’re warm and cozy in your bed getting the best sleep of your life, when a trickle of sunlight pierces through your window and touches your eye. Grudgingly you open your eyes to the painful bright light of morning, look at your calendar, and let out a big sigh. It’s Monday morning and we all know what that means, it’s time to go to work with that horrible boss you work for! She nags you and picks apart every little thing that you do without even so much as a thank you for the good you have done. She talks about you with the others behind your back. She demeans and humiliates you in front of others to make it seem as though you’re not smart enough to do your own job, which actually makes her look dumb, in your eyes, since she hired you! You could leave the job, but you find rewarding things about other aspects of your work or you just need the money. Either way, the Sunday sermon certainly didn’t help by reinforcing the concept that you have to submit to that witch!
How do you submit when you don’t want to? When you cannot stand the way this person even breathes?! And every time it seems like you do submit, they take advantage of their authority over you. I can teach you how to submit. Not the creepy 50 shades of grey type of submission or the wimpy submission where you pretend to submit to look like a champ publicly, but then go home in the bathroom and whimper and cry like a baby. Naw, I can teach you how to submit to the point where you aren’t even hardly fazed by the behavior the devil is throwing your way and when you enter the room the demons will be the ones whimpering and crying not you.
“Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.”
James 4:7-10(NASB)
Submission is a big thing that’s taught in the Bible that kind of gets a bad rep, especially from women now-a-days, but believe it or not everyone has to submit to someone—not just women. You have to submit to your guardians when you’re a child, you have to submit to your teachers/professors while in school, you have to submit to your land lord, your boss, husband, the government, and most importantly God. Whether you like it or not you will answer to someone for the things that you’re doing. God purposefully reinforces the concept of submission throughout all avenues of life to everyone because it’s extremely important to Him.
People will tell you there is power in submission, but they don’t always explain the depths of it all. Yes, there is tremendous power in submitting, when done correctly. We must acknowledge what submission is in God’s eyes. In God’s eyes, when we submit to the right things, we are acknowledging His order. God is a God of order, so to ignore order and organization that He has established, which is what submission does, is to reject Him. This is why God honors those who submit to authority whether being treated badly or not.
“Servants, be submissive to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and gentle, but also to those who are unreasonable”
1 Peter 2:18(NASB)
So, based on my own experiences, below are some steps that I’ve taken with submitting to past bosses I’ve dealt with.
- Know who you are in Christ: If you aren’t saved, now is a good time as any to get saved because one thing I know about God, is He likes to rescue those who cannot fight their own battles. Please check out my salvation blog(mostly the end), to get tips on how to be saved and email me if you have any questions. If you have God already and are struggling with a mean boss, husband, or professor know that if you have no idea what the Bible says about you, you will always find yourself crying or getting super offended by what your authority figure does against you. Honey, just because they are supposed to lead you and are close to you, just because they give you money to pay your rent, and just because they help determine your future career with those grades does not mean they own you and definitely does not mean they define who you are as a person. God defines you because He created you in His image. Your husband, your boss, or your teacher are just humans, they are not a steady anchor for your soul. Only God provides stability. He won’t change His opinion of you the next day because you make a mistake, forget to clean the dishes, or skip class. He knows you intimately, which is why you should read what He says about you.
- Make sure you’re in God’s will/submitted to God: If you are off in disobedience or cussing/snapping back at your boss/parent/teacher/husband, not coming to work on purpose because you can’t stand everyone but lying and saying you’re sick, or your spending time tearing your boss down with others behind their back, you are not going to be able to fight against Satan. In fact, Satan wants you here so you won’t be able to do the next step. By staying in sin that you’re aware of you are telling God that you refuse to submit to Him and His order and want to follow your flesh and we all know that leads to death.
- Resist the Devil: After you get out of disobedience temptation will come to lull you back into it. This is where you will have to resist. This step isn’t always as simple as it sounds because the enemy will try to do anything to push you into your old ways. He will use your boss, your coworkers, and even some family members to get you to retaliate against any authority God has placed in your life. Stand firm on what God’s word says about who you are and continue to resist. Ask God to help you in this step if you find it difficult. Prayer, fasting, and reading the word are very important during these steps. The bible says that we are to resist sin to the point of shedding blood, so if you haven’t shed blood yet you might not have resisted enough. Keep doing these things and over time you will become a pro at submitting to the authority God places over you, knowing that God covers and protects those who submit to Him.
Just to show you an example of the depth of crazy bosses I’ve dealt with, I once had a manager who would cuss me out, as well as others who worked there, in front of the customers on purpose because in her eyes I wasn’t selling a credit card ‘hard’ enough. Needless to say after doing these things listed above naturally, a guy came in and questioned about her, and she ended up getting ‘transferred’. No one ever heard from her again to my knowledge. God seriously can take care of your problem when you place it in His hand. I’m not saying they’ll get transferred, sometimes He’ll just soften their hearts towards you or present an opportunity for you both to bond, so you become more human to them, or He might just give you super natural peace to deal with everything, but whatever way He decides to help trust me it will take a huge chunk of the weight off of you.
” Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Matthew 11:28-30(NASB)
She is Adrianna 