The Night Frances Havergal Gave Everything Away

In February 1874, English hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal stayed at a friend's home where ten people were gathered, several of whom did not yet know the Lord. She spent the final night of her visit in prayer, asking God to work in every heart under that roof. By the time she left, each person had come to faith. Overwhelmed with gratitude, she sat down and wrote the hymn Take My Life and Let It Be.

But Havergal refused to let her own lyrics remain poetry on a page. When she reached the verse "Take my silver and my gold, not a mite would I withhold," she gathered every piece of jewelry she owned — rings, brooches, a gold necklace — and sent them to the Church Missionary Society. She kept only a small locket holding her mother's portrait. "I don't need these," she wrote to a friend. "Jesus is enough."

That is what genuine sacrifice looks like. Not reluctant giving under obligation, but the overflow of a heart so captured by the goodness of God that letting go feels like freedom, not loss.

Paul understood this when he wrote, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord" (Philippians 3:8). He was not gritting his teeth through sacrifice. He had seen something so beautiful that everything else dimmed beside it.

When El Shaddai asks for our surrender, He is not taking from us. He is making room for something infinitely better.