NO RIGHTS RESERVED

Lawyers are careful in our language because we know that small mistakes can produce large unintended consequences. That is why contracts seem so long and wordy, because they are full of belts and suspenders. Clients want an “ironclad” contract, but lawyers know there is no such thing. So, we try to squeegee out the wiggle room as much as possible.

A common squeegee is the non-waiver clause, which provides that a party’s failure to assert a right does not constitute its abandonment. It is like telling your teenager that if you let him break curfew on a single Saturday night, that does not mean he is free to come home whenever he wants forevermore without consequence.

“Son, just because I am not punishing you for coming in late last night doesn't mean that I don’t have the right to punish the next time you do it,” a (lawyerly) father might say. “I’m reserving all rights under our father-son contract.”

A reservation of rights works within human relations because they are based upon contract. The father agrees to allow the son a measure of freedom in consideration of the son’s promise to return home every night at a prescribed time. The son’s failure to do so is a breach of the father-son contract.

Lawyer that I am, I employed the same view when I became a Christian. “In consideration of eternal life and salvation through the death of Your son,” I said to God, “I commit my life to following Him.” Under that contract, I pledged my life to Christ like collateral, as if I were securing a debt. That seemed right to me.

But as my faith matured, I could see that it was not. My relationship with Christ is a covenant not a contract, and the Cross is not a debt like a mortgage that I could ever repay. There is no consideration I could possibly provide that would be adequate.

Christ did not die for me so that I would commit my life to Him, but so that I would surrender my life to him. To commit is to reserve rights, but to surrender is to hold back nothing, to waive any human right that I think I have--fully and completely.

No need to be careful. No belts and suspenders. No consideration. No rights reserved.