Contemplating Redemption

This is Pa. I'm feeling the reality of Redemption.

Redemption is when you sit in Kinship like I did last night with Ma Mumby and tell everybody about your not so nice past that had nothing to do with God and everything to do with evil and having an alcoholic marriage and bringing kids into it who you didn't raise even close to what God intended. It's about feeling sad and bad at the same time about your past and wishing, just wishing, you could do it all over.

Side note: it used to be about remorse too but Rod Howard and I talked that over one day and I don't go into remorse anymore. I do allow myself to feel the sadness though. It still feels heavy.

The good news is that after talking about how it was you then look at how it is now. Three sons, all in love with Jesus. I didn't do that. Three sons, all pursuing more of God in their lives and willing to sacrifice to get Him. I didn't teach them that. A marriage that is wonderfully fulfilling and safe. I didn't build that. God did it all. He Redeemed everything I wrecked and didn't do. I injected the poison, he washed it away with his blood.

I meditated on his redemptive love and power all night long. I'm still feeling contemplative and mystical and sort of out of body this morning. Since I have experienced such deep redemption in my life I can say that he can fix anything if you let him. Anything. But you have to let him and you can't hang on to the old stuff and draw identity out of it. You gotta let it go.

Another thing that I got thinking about last night (because we were talking about marriage at our kinship) was authority and submission. I really felt a stirring to teach on this at kinship because so many of us think the whole deal is about the wife submitting to the husband.

If you study the process it's all about the man submitting. The man is called to submit in four areas, the woman only one. The man submits first, the woman second. The first and foremost action of the man must be to submit to God in all areas of his life. If he does not do that, there are never any healthy roles of submission or authority played out in a marriage.

More marriages are wrecked due to the failure of the man to submit than the failure of the woman. When the man goes before God on the last day he is the one responsible for the marriage. There's gonna be a whole lot of surprised men on that day.

I don't plan on being one of them.