In the fires of refinement I have placed you, do not think I’ve left you there too long or forgotten about you. I leave you not there a moment longer than is needed to bring My vessel forth as a useful earthen vessel. Refining is a unique process for each vessel, what is refinement for one is a promised land for another. Do not look around and judge those about you and say, these face nothing and I am refined too hard.
You do not know how I deal with each. For some I exalt to instill confidence in Me, for others I debase to remove confidence in themselves. Still others are ready for My purposes and are moving in My groove. My ways are beyond tracing out, for I deal with the very heart of man. What I do is refine for My purposes. For one pride is removed, for another lust, for another attitudes of the heart and mindsets.
I see the very core of each of my treasured vessels and I do not desire that any are not used. I must refine to make them useful. Do not balk at the seriousness of My refinement, do not say this one has it easy, for you do not see the full path this one walks with Me. Look only to Me and My finger on you. Did I not even tell Peter not to concern himself with how I use another vessel, his concern was his walk with Me.
My children, look to Me for your purity, your newness, your purpose. Do not look around at what others are doing or going through for these are My concern. Look at what I am making in you and let Me refine you as I desire. Do you know what My purposes are for you? Can you tell Me even what will happen tomorrow? I know and see all the days ordained for you. I know how I am orchestrating your life and lives of others. Trust Me to bring you where I need you to go.
Your heart is willing before Me, stay in this willing, loving, thankful place and I will bring forth all I need in you and through you. Do not think I’ve forgotten you, for I have engraved you on the palms of My hands. Do not run ahead, but wait for Me to move and make your way so that you will walk in My strength and move as My made-ready vessel.
- “Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, “Lord, who is going to betray you?”) When Peter saw him, he asked, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus answered, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.” John 21:20-22
- “For my own name’s sake I delay my wrath; for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you, so as not to destroy you completely. See, I have refined you, though not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction. For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.” Isaiah 48:9-11
- “Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say, ‘The potter has no hands’? Woe to the one who says to a father, ‘What have you begotten?’ or to a mother, ‘What have you brought to birth?’ “This is what the Lord says – the Holy One of Israel, and its Maker: concerning things to come, do you question me about my children, or give me orders about the work of my hands? It is I who made the earth and created mankind on it. My own hands stretched out the heavens; I marshaled their starry hosts. I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 45:9-13
- “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” Isaiah 64:8
- “So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4 But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.” Jeremiah 18:3-4
- “See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” Isaiah 49:16