“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.” – 1 Timothy 2:11.
This verse used to get under my skin more than any other verse in the bible. When I was in high school, there was a particular boy from my youth group who would always lord this verse over me. He used it to belittle me, make feel less than what I was worth, and completely made me feel captive and beaten down. I thought this verse meant complete loss of will for me as a woman. Any time I had a thought that disagreed with him, he would quickly remind me: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission, Missy… Now do what I say.” The relationship I had with him was crippling and threatening to my soul, and the lies I learned from him I thought were truth; the meaning of this verse being one of them.
But praise be to God! He saved me from that sinful place I had put myself! The years that went by after I was rescued, God used His love to heal my ruined heart, and also to reveal and reject the lies I thought to be truth. One by one He replaced them, and again this verse was brought up. This time God wanted to show me the truth about it, instead of the manipulating definition I had believed.
A woman should learn in quietness
When I think about how God created me as a woman, I know that my heart is the home of everything. It’s the place I treasure things, it’s where I feel my emotions, where I store my dreams, and where my King lives. My heart is the key. In my heart is also the place where God teaches me, and I learn. So, if I am thinking about it that way, shouldn’t the place I learn be the place that is quiet? It’s always easier and more fruitful to study and learn in a quiet place, instead of a busy and hectic place. Learning in quietness means keeping a quiet heart. God teaches me, and I learn best from him when I’m quiet, when I’m not worrying and stressing out, when I’m not trying to take control of situations with my own hands; when I stop talking and just listen to him.
and full submission.
I looked up the definition of “submit” and it simply means to “give over or yield”. How many times has God asked us to do this for Him? To give over our desires to Him, to yield our wants to His will? Every time I do this with something precious that I’m afraid to give over, after I do yield it, I always see how it is safer with Him than me anyway. The yielding is always hard, until I see the effects of how it grows in the Father’s hands. Our acts of submission to Him, are our acts of obedience. There is always joy in obedience. And the good thing is that we always know what obedience looks like. In this season, (and the rest of our lives!) obedience looks like trusting Him with our hearts.
This verse isn’t a binding chain to throw around us to keep us bound up and pushed down; it’s a call to obedience by trusting Him in quietness and confidence to take care of our fragile hearts. We are in the safest place of all when we do that!
Going green and feeling free,
Miss.
This verse used to get under my skin more than any other verse in the bible. When I was in high school, there was a particular boy from my youth group who would always lord this verse over me. He used it to belittle me, make feel less than what I was worth, and completely made me feel captive and beaten down. I thought this verse meant complete loss of will for me as a woman. Any time I had a thought that disagreed with him, he would quickly remind me: “A woman should learn in quietness and full submission, Missy… Now do what I say.” The relationship I had with him was crippling and threatening to my soul, and the lies I learned from him I thought were truth; the meaning of this verse being one of them.
But praise be to God! He saved me from that sinful place I had put myself! The years that went by after I was rescued, God used His love to heal my ruined heart, and also to reveal and reject the lies I thought to be truth. One by one He replaced them, and again this verse was brought up. This time God wanted to show me the truth about it, instead of the manipulating definition I had believed.
A woman should learn in quietness
When I think about how God created me as a woman, I know that my heart is the home of everything. It’s the place I treasure things, it’s where I feel my emotions, where I store my dreams, and where my King lives. My heart is the key. In my heart is also the place where God teaches me, and I learn. So, if I am thinking about it that way, shouldn’t the place I learn be the place that is quiet? It’s always easier and more fruitful to study and learn in a quiet place, instead of a busy and hectic place. Learning in quietness means keeping a quiet heart. God teaches me, and I learn best from him when I’m quiet, when I’m not worrying and stressing out, when I’m not trying to take control of situations with my own hands; when I stop talking and just listen to him.
and full submission.
I looked up the definition of “submit” and it simply means to “give over or yield”. How many times has God asked us to do this for Him? To give over our desires to Him, to yield our wants to His will? Every time I do this with something precious that I’m afraid to give over, after I do yield it, I always see how it is safer with Him than me anyway. The yielding is always hard, until I see the effects of how it grows in the Father’s hands. Our acts of submission to Him, are our acts of obedience. There is always joy in obedience. And the good thing is that we always know what obedience looks like. In this season, (and the rest of our lives!) obedience looks like trusting Him with our hearts.
This verse isn’t a binding chain to throw around us to keep us bound up and pushed down; it’s a call to obedience by trusting Him in quietness and confidence to take care of our fragile hearts. We are in the safest place of all when we do that!
Going green and feeling free,
Miss.
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