Here Am I

“And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I! Send me.’"—Isaiah 6:8

God is looking for men and women who are available. People who are ready and willing to do whatever God wants them to do. Are we available? Or are we waiting to be available when it is convenient? God doesn’t necessarily call us in ways that we like or desire. He rarely lets us choose what it is we are to do for Him, or where it is we go. If we do choose, we usually choose what is safe. We choose to work with people who are just like us. Talk like us. Sound like us. Dress like us. People who like what we like, do what we do, and believe what we believe. We want those who vote like us and who will agree with us on virtually everything. But that is not what the Gospel is about. God wants to reach the nations…the world. And He wants it to begin with us. What does that mean? It means that for those of us who want both Christianity and Comfort, we need a spiritual reality check because when we want both, then we actually don’t get either one. It means radical obedience. It means being uncomfortable for the sake of the Gospel.

The Gospel doesn’t mean being comfortable in our own safe little insulated worlds. It means living life by faith, living radically different than the world, even the safe world which many of us inhabit. What do I mean when I say “safe world”? The safe world is living a life for comfort, pleasure, and safety to the extent that we appear to live as if this were the only world there is. My safe world then becomes my Christian world. But that is not the Gospel. The Gospel is not a call for everyone to wear Christian t-shirts and listen to your favorite Christian contemporary music on a station like K-LOVE. Not that there is anything inherently wrong in listening to K-LOVE or wearing a Christian t-shirt. It becomes wrong when we believe that is the Gospel we are to communicate. That is the Christian subculture—where everything we do is Christian, the books we read, the shows we watch, the businesses we frequent, and we do it to such an extent that those are the only places we go. But God calls us to go to the difficult places, the dangerous places, the places where the down and out of society live. He desires that we go to the poor, the impoverished, the dangerous, the difficult, and the downtrodden. He desires that we go to those who have been beaten and bruised, burdened and brushed aside. He wants us to go to “the least of these.” But, many of us don’t go to the least of these. We go to the least difficult of these. We go to those who aren’t hard or dangerous. Most often, we go to the places and people where it’s not too difficult, dangerous, or disturbing.

But that is not the Gospel.

We need a fresh vision of God.

Isaiah was given a vision of God’s throne room. He saw God high and lifted up. He saw the angels circling around God’s throne and heard the voices of the angels saying: “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory”—Isaiah 6:3. It is only when Isaiah got a vision of God, that He was ready to receive direction from God. Given a vision of God, God’s voice rang out with a question, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Isaiah responded because He knew who it was that asked the question. It was God. There was no problem that couldn’t be solved, no situation that could not be conquered. God asked a question and Isaiah responded, “Here am I! Send me.” He was ready to go even though it would be a difficult task, a terrible trial, and quite possibly a horrendous travesty. But it didn’t matter. Once God was seen in His glory, there was no turning back. There was no obstacle too great, no task too small. Comfort becomes a crutch in moments like these. When we get a picture of the Holy God of the universe, everything else fades away like the night sky at sunrise. When God is seen in His glory, we want to obey with every cell in our body. We want to do only what pleases Him.

Do we want God more than anything this life has to offer? Have we received a vision of God really in all of His glory? Ask God to give you a vision of Himself. And ask Him if there is anything that is getting in our way of seeing God. Do we value our comfort over Christ? Safety and security more than the Savior? Are we delighting more in the gifts that God has given, or in the Giver Himself? If there is anything that is keeping us from seeing our Lord clearly, then we need to repent. We need to ask God to remove any of the obstacles that are keeping us from saying, “Here am I, send me.” May God give us such a vision of Himself, that we, in wholehearted love and obedience, can clearly say, “Here am I. Send me.” And may He do it and receive glory because of it. Amen.