Esther 1:12 - But when the attendants delivered the king's command, Queen Vashti refused to come. Then the king became furious and burned with anger.
Submission (or lack of it) has incredible long term impacts, yet the reasons for our lack of submission are usually temporary and selfish.
This story about Xerxes has many emotional ties. He was selfish in his request and wrong in putting his wife in that position. But her response was also controlling and disrespectful to his leadership. Both were unsubmissive.
A lack of submission is always damaging long-term. When we push our agenda instead of trusting God to work through the situation, it causes broken relationships and a slowdown in purpose. Submission is not about right/wrong but about trust.
Unfortunately, the extreme cases of submission get used as excuses in the daily situations. We are quick to point out the abuse victim and use it to justify not submitting to the insensitive leader, or leverage a past hurt to avoid submitting to our spouse. But usually, it is not that extreme. Often it is better to simply submit and later address the feelings or rightness of the request than to rebel against the decision.
More importantly, a spirit of submission is more attractive and winsome than a spirit of challenge/questioning. We have more opportunity to change a decision by submitting than rebelling. The rest of Esther shows how well submission works.
Remember that submission is not just doing the action, but wanting to support the relationship. It's about wanting to keep the relationship right instead of pursuing out own will. That leads to better results than passively rejecting both.
So make the choice to be submissive today in your relationships and see where it leads you. Examine more closely how submitting gets you faster to the result desired---even if it means a bad decision was supported. Try some experiments and learn the lessons of submission. Discover the incredible power from submission.
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