Resignation or Acceptance?
It is the Lord: let him do what seemeth him good.
I Samuel 3:18
Eli was resigned to the will of God as revealed by Samuel. Resignation is better than rebellion or a stiff-upper-lip Stoicism, but it is not the highest attitude. We acquiesce and resign to the inevitable because we have to! After all, there isn’t much we can do about it.
Resignation may bring a martyr complex and a selfish pride at putting up with whatever comes. Better than all this is acceptance: accept the will of God when adversity comes, learn whatever lessons are in it and believe that it works for our good. That is a wholesome and healthy spirit. Rebellion or a mere endurance of affliction may wreck us. Resignation may make us “proud that we are humble.” Acceptance falls in with God’s plan and purpose and enables us to safely trust, even though we may not fully understand.
Some things, of course, are never meant to be accepted. They are the will of the devil and must be resisted and defeated. But that which cannot be changed may be turned to God’s glory and our good if accepted and transmuted from a burden into a blessing.