In his parenting series Growing Kids God’s Way Gary Ezzo observes that children are not ready to make choices until they are willing not to have a choice. That’s an astute observationof a child’s moral development, but it should leave the 21 st Century 
American adult wondering, “Am I willing not to have a choice?” In a country sown on the demand for liberty or death and fertilized by the customer always being right, don’t I now assume choice and control? Whether it be in public or private, at home, work, or church, have I become the unsubmissive child, demanding power when refused it? How I need the discipline of submission, which Richard Foster defines in part as our being “set free from the need to have things our own way.” Foster explains submission’s importance in his book Celebration of Discipline:
Submission is an ethical theme that runs the gamut of the New Testament. It is a posture obligatory upon all Christians: men as well as women, fathers as well as children, masters as well as slaves. We are commanded to live a life of submission because Jesus lived a life of submission, not because we are in a particular place or station in life. Self-denial is a posture fitting for all those who follow the crucified Lord. . . .
It is impossible to overstate the revolutionary character of Jesus’ life and teaching at this point. It did away with all the claims to privileged position and status. It called into being a whole new order of leadership. The cross-life of Jesus undermined all social orders based on power and self-interest. . . . The cross-life is the life of voluntary submission. The cross-life is the life of freely accepted servanthood.
from Richard J. Foster’s Celebration of Discipline.
Expressions of submission:
“As thou wilt; what thou wilt; when thou wilt.”
- Thomas a Kempis
“Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.”
- T.S. Eliot
Scripture on the theme:
Mark 8:34; Eph. 5:21; Mark 9:35; 1Peter 2:21-23 ; John 13:15 ; Phil. 2:4-7
