There are many situations in life to which we respond by grumbling, or hesitancy in choosing the best response. This especially occurs when others are involved and make suggestions that don’t quite fit in with how we see things.
St. Francis de Sales proposes a concept we don’t always find positive in our day, the concept of submission. He suggests, “Well, what is the counsel of self-denial, but the absolute renunciation on all possible occasions of doing our own will and exercising our own private judgement, in order to follow the will of another, and to submit ourselves to all, excepting always in that which would offend God.”
“ But” you may say., ” I see very clearly that what they wish me to do proceeds from a human will and a natural inclination, and therefore that it is not from an inspiration of God that my mother or my sister insists upon my doing this or that.”
“No, perhaps God had not inspired this desire, but He has inspired you to obey it, and if you fail to comply, you are going against the determination to do in all things God’s will, and consequently neglecting the care you ought to take of your perfection. You must always then submit to what is asked of you in order to do the will of God, provided it be not contrary to that will, as signified to you in the manner above mentioned.”
Source: Spiritual Conferences of St. Francis de Sales, Conference XV