You are among the anointed for Christ!

You are among the anointed for Christ!

When God called you out of a life that was going nowhere, you were surprised and elated as well.  The truth is God will never ask someone to do his will without equipping that person with the skills to move ahead with the task ahead.  With some there may be sessions of achievements preparing you for the most stringent challenges your assignment will present to your final accomplishments.  

Ask anyone who has been called to ministry if the order of meeting their mission was in perfect sync without questions as to why God chose them.  Christ himself had to grow through significant attacks from Satan before his graduation to move into our world would open up for his ministry to begin. (Lk 4: 1 - 13).  Each person whom God calls will find unknown or unwritten obstacles that textbooks do not list.  Every new challenge we may encounter as our mission continues to move with people who were waiting for us, becomes another notch on our belt of success for God.

Just viewing a minister on TV who gave a couple of examples of how different regular persons became an anointed placement for standing in for God and healing another with physical or emotional results.  The first example was about two twin girls who were born with one revealing a perfect healthy baby while her twin sister had a heart problem and was not expected to live.  The hospital had a policy of keeping them in separate incubators.but a nurse convinced the hospital to forgo that and the twins were placed side by side.  During the night the healthy girl placed her arm on her sister's back and the sick girl recovered, with no heart problems.  Today they are both healthy.

Our next story is that of a young girl athlete running a 1600 yard race and won with no problem.  The next race she was to run in was 3200 yards and she was expected to set a world record here as well.  During the race Meghan (her name) was way ahead but she noticed another runner having a problem to the point of collapsing.  Meghan gave up her chance to win and put her arm around the struggling racer and supported her all the way to the finish line.  She even pushed her new found friend ahead of her across the finish line.  Afterwards, she told everyone she was more interested in helping a struggling competitor when she was almost collapsing rather than winning a medal.  Both of these two instances show completely how the anointing is available to everyone even if we do not recognize the opportunity and respond to the needs of another person.

Just what does the anointing of someone look like?  A smile when there appears to be gloom hanging around in a crowded room where no one is showing peace on their expression.  How about when we bump into a person that appears lonely or out of sorts.  A hand held out as an offer of “Here take my hand, I’ll walk with you.” might be the only manner of someone who cares for me will last for a long time.  

Anointing can be found through writing, a spoken word or homily, an embrace for support from a loss or sharing a win for a friend.  We can never assume that the moment we find ourselves in the position of reaching out to even strangers was just by chance.  Remember, with God nothing is by chance.  Being somewhere in your ministry and accomplishing a positive result doesn’t mean you were not the vehicle God chose before you were born to be here and be the hands of God.  In a personal way I have discovered more than once and more times than I ever expected finding myself where without my presence and ordination gifts the other person would have missed some much needed grace that used me to hand on to a stranger.  I am thankful that God would even use me when only he and I were aware of what happened.  That is God anointing me as well as many millions of others who were given this gift for someone else’s benefit.  

Ralph B. Hathaway