Am I the only one who doesn't get warm fuzzies when I hear the phrase wives submit to your husbands? When I was little, I was a conformist to the non-conformity group. I wasn't the make-up, baby dolls, playing house sort of girl. I was more of the climbing tree, arm wrestling, and baseball playing kid. So when I read my new responsibility as a Christian in Ephesians 5:22, "Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord," I wasn't too excited. Even if I was not married-and am still not, I gathered my future wasn't going to be too enjoyable under such circumstances. But as the year's went by, I began to get wise enough to consider the man's responsibility in the deal and my perspective's changed. In three verses later, it says, "Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church." When I read that I began to see submission in a different light.

I began to seriously consider how Christ loved the church. When you think of Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross, have you ever considered it an act of submission? I didn't, until one day I was reading Philippians 2:5-11. Christ's obedience in the act of dying on the cross is expressed in a way I had never considered before.

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death-even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

In this passage, it says, the creator and God of the whole universe came down as one of us-and "did not consider equality with God something to be grasped." Hold on one minute, Jesus was God! Yet, when he came down as God incarnate, he did not consider equality with God the Father. If Jesus himself, in his desire to save us, became so much like man that he didn't even consider equality with the Father God, how much more should we submit? All of a sudden the man's task seemed a lot bigger than I had thought.

Not only that, but Jesus laid his life down for us all. The command to love one's wife as Christ loved the church is a call for a man to not only stoop in humility and serve us who are undeserving, but also a call for him to lay down his life for her. Somehow, my small act of being submissive became dim and tiny. If a man were to love me as Christ loved the church; if he had the same love that my Savior hanging on a cross and paying the penalty for my sin, did for me--submission would be worth it.

A pastor once told me a story that was perfect in showing the role of what kind of love God is asking a man to have for his wife. It was about this Indian Chief. He had two rules for the community. Each crime was punishable by receiving ten lashes in the square, stripped naked before everybody. Yet, the other rule was to love your family and never bring harm upon them. One day, the Chief discovered that someone was stealing from another family in the community. He warned the people once that the crime would be a whipping of ten lashes each time they stole. The stealing lasted four days. People were getting nervous, because no one could survive forty lashes. To everyone's surprise the thief was caught that day, but the whole community had a problem. You see the thief was the Chief's wife. The people knew that if the Chief had her beat, he would be breaking his rule to never harm your family. But is she didn't get punished; he would be breaking his rule against committing crime in the community.

So the next day everyone gathered in the square, waiting to see what he'd do. They watched as he brought his wife to the center of the square, fully clothed, but the men with whips were standing by. The crowd figured he would have her punished, but no one expected what happened next. He stripped off his shirt and, wrapped his arms around his wife. Then he gave the men the order to start whipping. With tears of love in his eyes he took her punishment for her. Justice was served, and like Jesus took his punishment for us, he took the punishment for her. This way neither rule was broken.

The Lord asked this kind of love of our husbands-or if you are single like me, our future husbands. If he is obedient in this kind of love, submission will be a delight for you. What a different prospective, huh? When Christ was in the garden, praying before he went to die on the cross, he said, "Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will." He submitted to death on a cross for us. Then he rose and gave us everlasting life. Praise be to God!! That was the ultimate submission. In light of that sacrifice, let us submit to the Father on high, and in the midst of the little things we are blessed in-the love between man and woman; we can do so too.