What does it mean to give up my right to myself? Oswald chambers writes that all gifts come from God. We can’t dedicate something to Him that isn’t ours. The only thing we have to give to God is our right to ourself.

Romans 12:1 says, Take your everyday, ordinary life – you’re sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.

Because I’m walking through this with my children, I found the need to explain or at least attempt an explanation of what it might mean to  ‘give up the right to myself’, and here is the most succinct response I could muster: Trust that instead of thinking about ourselves all day, every day and our needs and desires and plans – we have the freedom to think about God instead, trusting His way and provision. 

Galatians 6:11-13 says, …Can’t you see the central issue in all this?… It is what God is doing, and he is creating something totally new, a free life!…

I was seeing how we get so caught up in ourselves, absolutely, but within getting caught up in ourselves, we also get caught up in HUGE generalizations, labeling things good or bad and judging so that we THINK we can avoid thinking about God and convince ourselves that we are ‘doing His will’ even when we aren’t considering Him. An example? If I label something good in my head – I no longer consider God’s will in the matter, I plunge forth without consulting… it becomes part of my routine or my expectation… a very subtle shift back to ‘me’. No one has ever said that satan isn’t clever. And then we swing to the other side and say if I’m thinking about God I can do nothing else but lay around – back to ‘I’… think about God. I can go no further with this because at some point, we all have to ‘taste and see’ what it means to ‘Come to Him’. 

To end, here’s a fun quote from George MacDonald: “Am I wrong, then, in presuming that a man is superior to a bird?” — “That is as it may be. We do not waste our intellects in generalizing, but take man or bird as we find him.”

Through the gift and power of the Holy Spirit, let’s keep our eyes on Him, moment by moment.