Worshipful Resignation

"Though we cannot control the universe, we can determine our attitude toward it. We can accept God's will wherever it is expressed and take toward it an attitude of worshipful resignation. If my will is to do God's will, then there will be no controversy with anything that comes in the course of my daily walk. Inclement weather, unpleasant neighbors, physical handicaps, adverse political conditions,--- all these will be accepted as God's will for the time and surrendered to provisionally, subject to such alterations as God may see fit to make, either by His own sovereign providence or in answer to believing prayer."
~~quote taken from Born After Midnight by A.W. Tozer

We had an ice storm this week-end, followed by a thin dusting of "powdered sugar" snow. It was inconvenient. It meant postponing our women's event at church, and from there my mind extrapolated other unpleasant ramifications: maybe my parents wouldn't make it to my daughter's first recital, maybe there wouldn't BE a recital, probably the attendance at church would be small, then the necessary offerings might not be collected, so then the bills wouldn't be paid on time, and we couldn't travel to see our sick mama, and we don't have decent winter tires on the car and on and on and on.

I was anything but worshipfully resigned.

Then I went into the sanctuary and beheld His glory. Here is what happened:

During communion, an older gentleman from our congregation stood to bless the cup. He made reference to the scripture from Isaiah, which tells us that "though our sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow." He proceeded to describe in poetic detail a nature scene that he had held in his memory bank from his youth. It was a country snow scene, where each blade of grass, each fencepost and tree branch were encrusted with snow. He spoke of the quietness, and then the utter indescribable beauty of a pink sunrise reflected as a million points of brilliance off the virgin snow.

His description moved me deeply. My tears fell as I noted the wetness in his own eyes. Half a century had obviously made that holy moment even more vivid and precious to him.

It changed my whole perspective. How could I have missed the beauty? It was a gift from my Heavenly Father, and my eyes were blind to the moment.

The cares of this life can so encumber us. I want to be worshipfully resigned to God's will, as Tozer so eloquently words it. Even in inclement weather.