When Your Rights Are Violated

This past summer, my family’s house was up for sale. It was a big house and took hours to clean. I remember having my days lined out: I would wake up at 5, work on 30 Days of Surrender, go for a run, get ready for the day, and then go to work. But then we would get a text saying that we were showing the house the next morning. All plans were cancelled and everyone dropped everything to frantically clean the house.

 Needless to say, these were definitely times where God taught me about surrendering my perceived “rights” to my time. Schylie La Belle was a wonderful edition to the team of Surrender authors and her devotional was Surrender Your Rights. Today she is here to talk about surrendering your rights. She goes more in depth in our new ebook 30 Days of Surrender that is now available for purchase!

What did you learn while writing for 30 Days of Surrender?

Writing a devotional in 30 Days of Surrender took a lot of work. I learned a few things as I wrote. I learned to persevere in spite of roadblocks and frustrations. Writing wasn’t the hardest part; editing was. Rarely do you right something and publish the first draft. It took perseverance to keep reading, writing, and editing my devotional.

I also learned to work diligently. I had to submit my first draft by a certain deadline. The revised editions also had to be sent in on certain days. This helped me to work methodically and make sure I wasn’t late. Procrastination is so easy to fall into and I certainly did not want to put my obligations off until it was too late to complete them accordingly.

You wrote about surrendering rights. What made you pick that topic?

Surrendering personal rights really hit home for me. The examples in my devotional describe how difficult this is for me. Perhaps it is because I am a naturally quiet and reserved that I sometimes get overlooked and brushed aside. It is at times like this that I feel ready to stamp my feet and demand to be noticed and heard.

This is why I chose to write about this topic. It is hard for me to surrender my perceived rights to my time, possessions, and other things, and use these things for the Lord instead of for my own desires and promotion.

In Surrender Your Rights, you talk about how it can be frustrated when someone takes up your time. What advice to have for girls who struggle with surrendering their rights to their time?

Remember that God gave you everything: your family, your talents, your possessions, and even your time. Ask the Lord to show you how He wants you to use your time. There is a heart change needed in order to truly give up your rights for your time. It’s not until we see that the Lord is God of our time, and our hearts truly and completely desire to please Him, that we can surrender our time and seek the Lord in how we use it.

What daily habits would you recommend to help us crucify our need to fight for our “rights?”

In order to see everything through the eyes of God, we need to learn what He loves, what He hates, and what He requires of us. The best way to do this is to immerse ourselves in His Word. Read the Bible daily and thoughtfully. Pray through the passages. Mediate on the verses.

Another important habit is to commune with the Lord in prayer. God speaks to us through His Word, but we also need to communicate back to the Lord through prayer. Talk to Him; tell Him of your failures, your successes, your hopes, your trials, and your sorrows. As we draw near to the Lord, we will become more like His Son, Jesus Christ. In this way, the Lord will help us to turn from serving ourselves and claiming our “rights,” to seeking Him and His will and serving others.

Practically, how do we as Christian girls fight our flesh and, for the sake of the Gospel, surrender our rights?

Even after we are saved, we still have sinful hearts which want to serve and please ourselves. To fight against the flesh, we have to go against the grain of our evil hearts. Practically, this can look like a few different things. When you are doing something and are asked by a family member to help with something else, choose to promptly assist them instead of demand your “right” to your time.

Think of ways to use your time to bless others. Babysitting for a single mom at church, raking leaves for an elderly neighbor, or volunteering at a soup kitchen are all ways you can use your time to bless others.

Regarding your possessions, look for ways to bless others with what you own. Maybe you can give money to a needy friend, or make a meal for an ill neighbor. Because our sinful hearts are always looking for ways to please and pamper ourselves, we have to actively look for ways to work against those desires. You’d be surprised how many opportunities there are in our lives to serve and bless others.

Schylie La Belle is the second oldest of 7 children, living with her parents on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She is a graduate of Cape Cod Community College, with her AA in Liberal Arts, class of 2017. This September, she will be leaving for Uganda for a year-long mission trip. She enjoys writing Christian fiction stories, taking long walks, eating delicious healthy foods, and spending quality time with her siblings.

If you liked this interview with Schylie, you will love our new ebook, 30 Days of Surrender. You can purchase it here. In it, Schylie goes into greater depth about what we think our rights ought to be, how to surrender those, and what it means that God has given us the right to be children of God. Purchase it here!

What areas in your life do you feel you have rights to? Are those Biblical? What are some common unbiblical places that we think we have rights to? Share in the comments!