My Rights

In the last several years, I have fallen deeper in love with God than I ever have been. I don’t have the capacity to make that happen, so it has not been due to my creativity! It has only been because of God’s rich mercy. All I have done was to watch in amazement what God has been doing within me.

After 74 years of excellent health, Connie, my wonderful wife of nearly 57 years, was diagnosed with Myelodysplastic Syndrome (MDS) with isolated del (5q), a fatal blood disease. We were told her death could occur within a few months or maybe up to 3 years. It would be mild to say this put us in shock. This launched us on a spiritual learning curve.

Since we both strongly believed in divine healing, after much prayer, we both sensed we should not try to be God’s advisor. While we continued to tell God our preferences, we trusted in His love and wisdom more than our own. When she graduated into her reward slightly over two years ago, I confess, the grieving process was very difficult. However, I grew in my understanding of who God is and who I am, which resulted in greater intimacy with Him.

During this time, I increasingly surrendered more and more of my rights to Him. As I did so, my sense of freedom and inner peace increased. Solomon’s words “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 ESV became much more real to me. Paul’s statement, “You say, ‘I am allowed to do anything’—but not everything is good for you. You say, ‘I am allowed to do anything’—but not everything is beneficial. Don’t be concerned for your own good but for the good of others.” 1 Cor. 10:23-24 NLT, took on new meaning to me. I have found that the more I yield to Christ, the more I will be a “conqueror”. It is one of heaven’s strange laws that if I resign all rights of possession to Jesus Christ, I begin that very moment to possess all that I have surrendered.

Oswald Chambers said, “The passion of Christianity is that I deliberately sign away my own rights and become a bond-slave of Jesus Christ. Until I do that, I do not begin to be a saint.” Paul explained Jesus died so “that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them” (2Co 5:15, NIV). The cross of Christ—and its power—is fulfilled in me the moment I say yes to the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over me.

I was invited to volunteer as a pastor-at-large at a seminary in the Philippines. That step would be a significant one for a 79-year-old widower in less-than-perfect health. With no other motivation than sensing it was the right thing to do, I made it happen, leaving it up to God to bail me out if I was wrong. If I were to die there, I would die.

After arriving, I experienced an uncanny level of the peace of God that I had never experienced. He gave me such grace in the eyes of faculty and students that despite being among people from 36 different nations with all their dialects, I was precisely where God wanted me for that time in my life. It literally left me in awe for my three-month stint. Our rights are not as important as they first appear. What new challenge has God presented for you to take on?

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