Vance Havner

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.

Orpah or Ruth?

And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her.
Ruth 1:14

We prove our love by our loyalty. Orpah made a show of affection, but it was Ruth who said, “Whither thou goest I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people and thy God my God.”

Judas betrayed the Lord with a kiss, not a slap. Our Lord is betrayed with a show of affection perhaps more often than in any other way. We call Him Lord, Lord, and do not what He says. He that keepeth His commandments, he it is that loveth Him, not he that just sings “O, How I Love Jesus.”

As with the woman who cried out in the crowd (Lk. 11:27, 28) and Mary in the garden (Jno. 20:17), our Lord attaches little importance to an outward show of affection, but makes obedience to His commands the primary matter. To be sure, He welcomes our kiss: “Thou gavest me no kiss; but this woman…hath not ceased to kiss my feet” (Lk. 7:45); but as with husband and wife so it is with the soul and Christ, the test of love is loyalty.

There are Sunday morning Orpahs aplenty, but few Ruths who cleave unto Jesus wherever He goes, who make His people their people and His God their God.