A Vessel Unto Honour

Twenty-nine years ago, as a brand new, twenty-seven year old pastor’s wife, I was excited about the prospect of doing something good with my husband, for the cause of Christ. Having grown up in a pastor’s home, this life in the ministry was the only kind of life I had ever known and I was well acquainted with the trials and hardships that could come. I knew there would be lean times and I planned on them. I knew there would be heart breaking times and I anticipated them. But I also learned from my parents that Jesus never fails. I just believed God could do anything! Even in a small town that most people would ignore, I knew that God could do what seemed impossible to man. My faith was huge! I wanted nothing more than to be a vessel to honor for my Lord and the best possible helpmeet to my husband that I could humanly be. I still feel the same way today, but those desires have been thoroughly tested in the furnace of trial and affliction.

Becoming a “vessel to honour” is a noble aspiration. Just the words alone sound.....well .....beautiful. Desiring this state and getting to this place of wonderful usefulness, is yet another story all together. Every day of our lives, we are either becoming purer and holier in our lifestyle and thoughts or we are inch by inch, becoming more filled with the world and worldly thinking and more estranged and less useable as a potential “vessel to honour”.

God has a plan for removing the impurities from the lives of those who desire to be useful vessels for Him. Making it through the Refiner’s furnace is a process that no one looks forward to and not many seek to experience. If you desire to ever become a useful vessel to honour in the Lord’s work and for His own glory.....you must plan on going through the furnace of trial. It is inevitable. In the refining of any precious metal, it takes extreme, intense heat to liquefy the metal in order to separate the precious silver from the dross. The dross.....those ugly, useless parts that keep us from becoming valuable. There is only one way to purify. Heat.

Proverbs 25:4 “Take away the dross from the silver, and there shall come forth a vessel for the finer.”

Isaiah 1:25 “And I will turn my hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin:”

Twenty-nine years ago, I made myself willing to go through this process. Almost from the day we moved to Larimore, and my husband began his life work of pioneering a new church for the Lord, I have felt like I’ve had a target on me. Every ounce of zeal that I have had for my Lord has been attacked, tested and questioned over these twenty-nine years. I knew from the start that if Satan could get me to quit, give up or crash and burn, that he would have my husband too. One of my most frequent prayers has been that I would never be the cause or the reason why my husband would quit serving the Lord. Pastors do quit you know....hundreds attempt to every Monday morning!

In the midst of the heat of the furnace, it’s easy to question God. The trials of a health crisis, financial struggles, family concerns that bear the critical scrutiny of the very people you love and give your life for, or the rejection and disrespect from friends or people you have nurtured in the ministry, all pile together and cause you to say, ‘Why Lord?’. “Don’t you see that we’ve tried to be faithful to You?”

Just recently, those very thoughts began to filter through my mind again and I had to go back once more, to the commitment I made twenty-nine years ago, in my youthful desire, to become a vessel to honour.



The words to a song my faithful husband and I used to sing so much together, began to whisper to my hurting heart, and a new resolve, accompanied by the comfort of the Holy Spirit of God, just washed over
my soul. Because of the heat of the furnace of trials, we stopped
singing this song. We were in the midst of proving whether we truly believed what we had sung for so many years.

"Whatever It Takes"

There’s a voice calling me from an old rugged tree, and it whispers, draw closer to Me.
Leave this world far behind, there are new heights to climb, and a new way in Me you will find.
For whatever it takes, to draw closer to You Lord. That’s what I’ll be willing to do.
For whatever it takes to be more like You...that’s what, I’ll be willing to do.
I’ll trade sunshine for rain, comfort for pain...that’s what I’ll be willing to do.
For whatever it takes, for my will to break...that’s what I’ll be willing to do.

Take my houses and lands, change my dreams and my plans, for I’m placing my whole life in Your hands.
And if You call me today, to a land far away, Lord I’ll go...and Your will obey.
For whatever it takes, to draw closer to You Lord. That’s what I’ll be willing to do.
For whatever it takes, to be more like You...that’s what I’ll be willing to do.

Recently, the Lord has been showing me a lot of the “whys” and the “why nots” of all the hurts and disappointments of the past twenty-nine years. I still want to be that vessel to honour. I’m still willing to go through “whatever it takes”.... for my Faithful Lord and Saviour, will be there with me in my furnace of trial.