Yesterday was election day - a reminder that in our country we have the right to a say in our government. Perhaps this is why I at times so fiercely safeguard what I determine as my rights. What emerges is a sometimes skewed sense of what is mine, to the point where I demand rights that perhaps were never mine to claim. When I acknowledge a Savior who never asserted His right to treatment befitting his authority and kingship, I'm completely flattened. He yielded His rights, yet He of all people, should have had every right!

Mabel Williamson, who had to deal with the loss of her own rights as a missionary in China in the 1950's, spoke of Christ in this way:

No right to a soft bed, and a well-laid table;

No right to a home of His own, a place where His own pleasure might be sought;

No right to choose pleasant, congenial companions, those who could understand Him and sympathize with Him;

No right to shrink away from filth and sin, to pull His garments closer around Him and turn aside to walk in cleaner paths;

No right to be understood and appreciated; no, not by those upon whom He had poured out a double portion of His love;

No right even never to be forsaken by His Father, the One who meant more than all to Him.

His only right was silently to endure shame, spitting, blows; to take His place as a sinner at the dock; to bear my sins in anguish on the cross.

He had no rights. And I?

(Mabel Williamson, "Have We No Rights?", Chapter 12)