At What Cost, Anointing?

And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness. Malachi 3:3

What would you give to feel the anointing of God on your life? What would you pay to know that when you hit your knees in prayer that God would hear your every word and answer? What suffering would you go through to know that when you spoke yokes would break, captives would be set free and the broken would be made whole?

What price would you be willing to pay? How long would you fast? How long and how often would you pray? What abuse would you submit to? What treachery would you bear against you? What horrors would you endure? What anguish of soul?

What loved one would you lose? What child would you suffer the loss of? What pain would you be willing to suffer? What death would you die a thousand nights over? What soul-wrenching anguish would you endure to both humble you, mature you, establish you? How long would you pray to know that God would not only be there when you hit your knees, but answer you either audibly or in his own way that you would know His voice every time?

What price would you pay to have God say you are his friend? How big of a personal hell would you walk through, day in and day out, just to know Him intimately, until all that you are and all that you were, and all that you would become are consumed in the fire of His trying and testing, knowing that you are being purged of all the dross and all of your tin, refined and purified into the vessel God has shaped?

Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him. Psalms 105:19

There is no shaping after the oven. Once the clay is formed in the image He will make, the oven heated and the vessel tried by fire, there is no mid-course corrections...no reshaping. "But God, I'm not ready," we cry.

Yet, in His wisdom, He says nothing as he places us in the fires of trial and testing, purifying the vessel to see if that which He has shaped will withstand the heat and take the form of that which He has chosen it for. The secret is this...only He knows what He has formed and why. We have no right to ask. We have no right to demand why. He the Potter, is Sovereign in his wisdom, mercy, knowledge and skill. He is not concerned with what is fair, what is equitable. He sees only the desired end and the shaping it must take to become what he wants us to be.

Then I went down to the potter's house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it. Jeremiah 18:3-4

I have often heard that the only battles regarded highly among seasoned fighting men are those that cost much in blood, sweat, pain, comrades lost and friends long fallen...but never forgotten.

Vessels of honor are nothing less in God's eyes. He must see in that image which He is creating His desired end. He desires one that will hold to his guidance and promise and yield willingly to His shaping, even to the brink of death. He must know and see in their eyes the trust and confidence that says, "Do what you will, my Master. I will stay the course!"

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. Jeremiah 29:11