Joyful Submission

Romans 12:1

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

He who loves God finds sweetness in every dispensation.

What an infinite pleasure it must be, as it were, to lose ourselves in Him, and being swallowed up in the overcoming sense of His goodness, to offer ourselves a living sacrifice, always ascending unto Him in flames of love!  Never does a soul know what solid joy and substantial pleasure are till once, being weary of itself, it renounces all property, gives itself up to the Author of its being, feels itself become a hallowed and devoted thing, and can say from an inward sense and feeling, "My Beloved is mine.  I account all His interest my own, and I am His.  I am content to be anything for Him, and do not care for anything for myself but that I may serve Him."

A person molded into this temper would find pleasure in all the dispensations of providence.  Temporal enjoyments would have another relish when he would taste the divine goodness in them, and consider them as tokens of love sent by his dearest Lord and Master.  And chastisements, though they are not joyous but grievous, would hereby lose their sting; the rod as well as the staff would comfort him; he would snatch a kiss from the hand that was smiting him, and would gather sweetness from that severity. Nay, he would rejoice that though God did not do the will of such a worthless and foolish creature as himself, yet He did His own will and accomplished His own designs, which are infinitely more holy and wise.

an excerpt from "The Works of Henry Scougal"