The Lord has been showing me that to follow Him I must surrender my rights. My right to fairness. My right to be understood. The right to have a misunderstanding from long ago clarified. The right to live in a house that is neatly trimmed out with fresh paint. Yes...I know that last one sounds silly....but that one hits home for me. The scripture today is about how Abram and Lot came to a place where they had to decide who ended up with what piece of land to live on. By rights, Abram should have had first dibs, but he surrendered that right to Lot. Lot chose the more fertile land. Abraham took what was left.
8 So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”
Genesis 13:8-9
From Chamber's devotional today:
....if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you
This has been a particularly difficult discipline for me to learn. I hesitate to even write the particulars here. For by writing about it....am I taking hold of my right to communicate the wrong committed against me years ago? And if I do that...do I have an alterier motive? Am I hoping a certain someone would read it and the truth would be told to him? I've already plowed ahead where I should not have in the past. I thought I had the right....but I should have surrendered it to the Lord. I paid the price. Look what eventually happened to Lot after he chose to pitch his tent close to Sodom. He was swept into the the sinful beliefs and points of view they held. Lot knew the Lord and was spared....but only barely escaped the flames.
And...it is never my right to hold a grudge against someone. In this case...I have held a grudge against my mother. I have dishonered her by rehearsing my anger against her. "Forgive me, Father."
I placed the picture of my mother above...to remind me that she was a godly woman. She wasn't perfect. She caused me a great amount of pain...but I must not hold onto that grievance.
Something else that Chambers points out:
Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Quite often God's way doesn't make any sense. It is at those times that it is particularly difficult to surrender my rights. I don't understand the wounds He has inflicted upon me...but I must yield myself to Him and his choosing for me.
This is what He calls me to:
...“I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.
Genesis 17:1
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