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DAILY SUBMISSION

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International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 4, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 42.

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DAILY SUBMISSION.

By M. F. Butts

“WHY not carry that same spirit of submission into little things?”
“For instance?”
“For instance, in the case of worry—this morning.”
“What, say, ‘Thy will be done,’ when John forgets to post a letter, putting me in a most annoying predicament?”
“Why not? It was a trial that cost you a day’s serenity. You were unkind to John, he reacted in ‘bearishness’ to you; just when the ‘little rift’ will be as before, no one can tell. You think a kiss will make it up, but every such scene injures the delicate bond we call love.”
“And would you have me say, ‘Thy will be done,’ when Bridget burns the bread or little Jack plays truant?”
“I would, indeed.”
“Why, it seems almost wicked.”
“Does it seem wicked to use the rain to wash our common household vessels? the lightning to carry an unimportant message, concerning the retailing of a few quarts of peanuts, we will say?”
“Why, no; of course not. But that is different.”
“Not as different as you suppose. Our Father gives himself in every form for our use. If we should use him in our daily life to procure patience, long-suffering, endurance of little trials, would not that be legitimate?”
The conversation between Mrs. Loomis and Mrs. Osgood had been concerning an experience which Mrs. Loomis had been relating to her friend. She had, years before, lost a beloved child, had submitted heartily to God as to a father, and had found unspeakable peace and uplifting. That wondrous heavenliness of feeling she had lost, and never expected to regain.
As the talk went on, Mrs. Osgood said:—
“Why not make our lives a perpetual surrender in the thousand little ways in which our wills are crossed, a perpetual yielding to God? There is no doubt we should then perpetually receive of his inflowing.”
“But,” said Mrs. Loomis, “there are so many things that are wrong, unjust, unfair. Ought we to submit to the wrong?”
“We ought to let God work in us toward adjusting and healing the wrong. By submission we allow him to come into our hearts, and work thence outwardly; but by anger and opposition we let badness in, the evil (the evil one), and adjustment even becomes more and more remote and impossible. ‘Our weapons are not carnal,’ the apostle says. In reality, the weapons we use are carnal; and only some great trial that threatens to crush us if we do not submit, brings us to the use of the spiritual weapons that we might use every day, nay, every minute, of our lives.”