Epiphanies come at the strangest times

I was standing in my room when suddenly something struck me. God has been trying to tell me to submit to authority for the past long LONG while, and like the stubborn mule that I am, I haven't been listening.

I've been having serious issues with submitting to authorities placed over me. I chafe, I grumble, I dissent, I rebel, and generally just act stupid. Not always, but I do a lot. Interestingly, all this summer I'm being told by multiple sources, all completely indepedent of one another about the importance of submitting to authorities and submitting to God and how that relates.

This summer, at Montreal, we studied 1 Peter. 1 Peter's all about suffering as a Christian and submitting to authority. The pastor at the church that I started going to is preaching a sermon about the necessity of submitting to God and all the other authorities that have been placed over us. Even Dan MacDonald preached about submitting to God the one week that I decided to go to Grace Toronto.

The biggest relation that I have sensed so far from studying 1 Peter and all these sermons (and some other things that my parents have told me - because they have been an integral part of this revelation) is that if I can't even obey and submit to the authorities that I see here on earth, that I can hear with my ears, that I can touch and probably understand, how in the world am I going to obey and submit to a God in heaven of whom I do not see, hear or touch. And by refusing to submit to earthly authorities, I'm implicitly refusing to submit to God's authority because it is by God's authority that these earthly authorities have been placed over me.

I think the first step that I need to take to properly submit myself is to truly humble myself before God. I need to lay my pride down at God's feet and then go about living my life as if it is through God's strength. My new theme verse is 1 Peter 4:11 "If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen" (KJV)