Here am I, Lord

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings:

With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.

And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
    the whole earth is full of his glory.”

 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar.

With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

This vision from Isaiah 6 tells the story of how he met with God face-to-face, and lived. Confronted with the glory of the Lord, before God and his seraphim, Isaiah confesses that he is only a sinner among sinners. Rather than kill him or cast him out, Isaiah’s guilt is taken away. He is clean.

Then, God asks “whom shall we send?” I notice that he doesn’t directly tell Isaiah that he needs to perform a job. He doesn’t force Isaiah to do anything. In fact, all throughout the Bible, God is never in the powerful leaders; he does not force or intimidate. Rather He whispers, speaks through the small, and comes to the humble.

Just as Godly responses cannot come from sinful places, Sinful responses cannot come from God. Without God’s help, even Isaiah would never have been able to respond with such joy and enthusiasm for accomplishing God’s purpose. Being cleansed, Isaiah jumps up to volunteer himself for the job. No matter that he doesn’t even know what the job is yet, he is clean and eager to live in righteousness.

I challenge you to think about the place confession has in your life. Try to come to the Lord daily and lay out your heart as an open book. Even if you can’t put into words what sins might be holding you down, tell Him that. We know that He will never reject a sincere heart. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). I pray for confidence in this truth, so that we also can jump up and say, “Here am I. Send me!”