Under the Authority of What Disturbs Us - Mature Submission

There exists a crucial moment every mature soul must pass through.

It's not the moment when you finally understand Scripture. It's not when every difficult passage finds its comforting explanation. It's not when the Bible finally becomes comfortable for your contemporary American conscience.

It's the moment when you consciously choose to submit to the authority of words you don't want to submit to. It's when you say "yes" to truths that cost something to your life, your comfort, your self-image.

It's the moment when you stop being the judge of God's Word and accept being judged by it.

And this moment - this act of mature submission - is simultaneously the most terrifying and most liberating act a human being can perform.

The anatomy of refined rebellion

Rebellion against divine authority today doesn't look like yesterday's rebellion.

It's no longer explicit rejection of God. It's no longer declared atheism. It's no longer open blasphemy.

It's something much more subtle and much more dangerous: the art of maintaining the form of submission while emptying the substance of authority.

It's saying "Lord, Lord" while silently rewriting the commandments to make them compatible with your preferences.

It's venerating Scripture as "God's Word" while developing hermeneutical methods so sophisticated that no divine word can actually disturb your life anymore.

It's professing submission to Christ while building a customized Christ who always blesses your choices and never asks for real sacrifices.

Refined rebellion is more dangerous than open rebellion because it deceives even those who practice it. It allows you to feel spiritual while remaining essentially autonomous. It permits you to appear devout while maintaining final control over what's acceptable in divine revelation.

The hidden cost of autonomy

There's a price you pay for maintaining final authority over your own life, even when you profess to have surrendered it to God.

The price is ontological loneliness.

When you are the ultimate authority deciding what's true and what's false, what's right and what's wrong, what's acceptable about God and what must be discarded, then you are essentially alone in the universe.

It doesn't matter how sincerely you believe in God. If God can only speak when you approve the content of his message, then the voice you hear is always and only the echo of your own voice.

It doesn't matter how devotedly you read Scripture. If Scripture has authority only when it confirms what you already think, then what you're worshipping isn't God's Word but the projection of your convictions onto ancient pages.

It doesn't matter how passionately you pray. If God can only respond in ways that align with your expectations, then the one you're dialoguing with isn't the Other, but an idealized reflection of yourself.

Autonomy - even religious autonomy - is the deepest of all loneliness.

The terror of authentic submission

But there's something even more terrifying than autonomy: the possibility of authentic submission.

The possibility that there really exists a Voice wiser than yours. A Will more just than yours. A Perspective broader than yours.

The possibility that that Voice has the right - not just the power, but the moral right - to call you to changes your human wisdom can't fully comprehend.

The possibility that your judgment about what's right, beautiful, acceptable, isn't the final court before which even God must appear for approval.

This terrifies because it means giving up control. It means accepting being creature instead of creator. It means admitting that maybe - just maybe - your limited perspective isn't the only valid measuring stick in the universe.

The paradox of freedom lost and found

But here's the paradox that runs through all of Scripture like an underground river:

Only those who lose their autonomy for love of God find true freedom.

Only those who accept being judged by the Word instead of judging the Word discover what it means to be truly free.

Only those who submit to the authority of truths they didn't choose experience liberation from prisons they didn't know they had built.

It's not spiritual masochism. It's not blind submission. It's not abandoning reason.

It's the mature recognition that your freedom to choose what's true doesn't equal your authority to determine what's true.

It's the adult acceptance that existing in a created universe means being subject to the authority of the Creator - even when that authority expresses itself through commandments your contemporary wisdom struggles to understand.

It's the discovery that submission to a Will infinitely wiser than yours isn't diminishment of your humanity, but its fulfillment.

The impossible experiment

Imagine for a moment doing an impossible experiment:

For one day - just one day - live as if every word of Scripture were true and authoritative, regardless of how much it disturbs your contemporary American sensibilities.

For one day, instead of filtering the Bible through your cultural lens, try filtering your culture through the biblical lens.

For one day, instead of judging which parts of God are acceptable, try allowing God to judge which parts of you need to be changed.

For one day, live under the authority of truths you didn't choose, you didn't control, you didn't domesticate to make them compatible with your preferences.

What happens?

Panic? Maybe, at first. Because you'll discover how accustomed you are to control and how terrifying surrender is.

Resistance? Certainly. Because every fiber of your fallen nature will scream against the idea of not being the final authority over your existence.

But then - if you have the courage to remain in the experiment long enough - you might discover something unexpected:

The freedom of not having to be God.

The relief of not having to have all the answers.

The peace of being able to trust a Wisdom greater than yours even when - especially when - you don't understand it completely.

The moment of final choice

And now, as you read these words, you've arrived at the moment this entire sequence of meditations was preparing:

The moment of conscious choice.

No more excuses. No more rationalizations. No more hermeneutical escape routes. No more sophisticated domestication of God's Word.

Just you, Scripture, and the most important question a human being can face:

Are you willing to submit to God's authority even when - especially when - that authority expresses itself through commandments your era, your culture, your personal sensibility find difficult to accept?

Are you willing to live under the authority of truths you didn't choose instead of under the authority of preferences you constructed?

Are you willing to be judged by the Word instead of judging the Word?

This isn't an intellectual decision. It's an act of will. It's a choice of heart. It's the moment when you decide whether your faith will be a projection of your preferences or a submission to God's preferences.

The question accompanying you today is the most important of all:

Are you ready to submit to God's authority even when that authority asks you for things your human wisdom doesn't understand? Do you have the courage to live under the authority of truths you didn't choose? Can you say "yes" to God even when his "yes" costs something to your "self"?

Because this - this act of mature submission - is the beginning of every true spiritual freedom, every authentic peace of soul, every genuine transformation of heart.