I don’t have any evidence for this and I’m not sure it could be polled accurately anyway, but I have an overwhelming sense that nobody in the current era, not even Christians, really likes the idea of submitting to God.

Submit yourselves 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 wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:7-10

To be truthful, I’m not sure it would have been overwhelmingly popular in any era. But examining belief in God in a modern context, as a totally voluntary and largely an individual choice, submission is all the more important. There is no king telling you to go to church or be labeled a heretic, no Puritan town leaders who will hang you as a witch, no real consequences at all for failing to be a Christian. That’s definitely the case in the global North, and probably most of the rest of the world as well.

That voluntary and individualized nature is what makes true conviction of belief all the more important. If it was a matter of social convention or cultural expectation alone, we could break away easily; the opinions of others are cheap things, in some ways. If it was a matter of ethics alone, we can justify, rationalize and make a lane for ourselves where we are right, at least in our own minds.

No, if we really believe in the God of the Bible, we have to reckon with the whole equation. We have to count the cost of following Jesus (Luke 14:28-33). Measuring that will take effort, because we are checking the gap between God’s expectations for us and our individual status quo. We should feel uncomfortable in the same way that physical weakness is obvious when trying to lift something heavy. Pride has to be exchanged for deeply felt, true humility. Straining toward humility will cause us to suffer, because it is far easier to turn inward, back to measuring ourselves by ourselves.

On that point we will conclude: the suffering is not the goal, nor is it a virtue unto itself. We can feel confident about our progress toward strength even while we are sore in our weakness but we don’t stop because of suffering and we don’t continue suffering for suffering sake. We resist so that the devil will flee, not so that we can invite more temptation. We submit to God so that he will lift us up.

Ethan Kirl