I attended a women’s conference this past weekend with 9999 other gloriously wonderful women. I switched into extrovert mode (the Lord has gifted me with the ability to do this for short bursts of time) and enjoyed the laughter, fellowship, music, and chaos completely. Of course for me, I had pen in hand and a high level of anticipation when it came time for the teaching. On Sunday morning I was utterly delighted when our speaker announced that she would be teaching from Isaiah 6! (Yep, you know the drill. Go read Isaiah 6: 1-8 and then come back) She went verse by verse but she stopped after verse 7. What?? 1-7 without 8? Say it ain’t so!! I have been mulling ever since and decided to write out my own thoughts.

Isaiah 6:8, “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.'” There are many proclamations uttered in His Word but could any be more profound than this? However, for Isaiah or any of us to be able to speak this proclamation aloud, there must first be some things we claim. They can all be found in verses 1-7.

1. See God
2. Recognize His sovereignty and holiness
3. Face our shortcomings and hypocrisy
4. Come into humility
5. Allow holy fire to cleanse us

If we are ever going to allow God to “send us” (don’t get caught up in the notion that send necessarily means a physical movement) we must first see Him. I don’t know anyone that has seen God the way Isaiah did. That was truly a unique experience. The way we need to see God is to recognize Him in our daily experiences. Can we see Him in a blooming flower? Can we see Him by knowing we never walk alone? Can we see Him by accepting that He adores us? Can we see Him by accepting His grace and mercy? Can we see Him all day long in His provision and protection? Can we see Him when all is not well but we still have peace and assurance? We’ve got to open the eyes of our hearts and look at Him before us, beside us, in us, and around us constantly before we will ever make bold proclamations of faith and trust to Him.

If we are ever going to allow God to “send us”, we must also recognize His sovereignty and holiness. Isaiah actually got to glimpse into the throne room of God and behold His holiness and sovereignty. It gets a whole lot more complicated and polluted for us. We rely so much on what our feelings tell us and what our physical eyes see that we often forget the power and majesty that belong to Him alone. The world convinces us that power and worship belong to money and status. We, ourselves, make God small and manageable like a person. When we do that we lose all perspective of who He really is. As hard as it is, we’ve got to let Him be beyond our comprehension because that is who He is. His words are not our words and His thoughts are not our thoughts. If we would release our grip on defining Him we might just be able to live in a state of awe and wonder at the mention of His name. He wants us to draw near but we’ve got to hold in front of us at all times that He is the Author of all life and we are not.

The next thing that Isaiah learned that we must learn as well is to recognize our shortcomings and hypocrisy. Before chapter six in Isaiah’s book, he spent lots of time pronouncing “woe to you” to lots of people. He judged others without seeing his own woes. That touches too close to home for us, doesn’t it? We love to post on Facebook or utter some “tsk, tsks” with a finger wag at another before we ever consider our own stuff. It’s in our fallen nature to do so. We must work hard to swim upstream, to go against the flow, and see ourselves as we really are. As hard as that is to do, once we can do it then we can walk right into the next step and come into humility. The journey to get there can be painful but once humility is entered into, peace and freedom flow quite freely. It is a great space to be in once we aren’t maneuvering to hide parts of ourselves away from God!

I love how God worked through Isaiah in these passages and how He works in our lives. Each step we take/claim makes the next one easier to do. Once we come into humility we will often find ourselves begging and eagerly anticipating the cleansing through holy fire. The further you go into God, the further you will want to go. You will actually just let yourself fall into Him. It’s a falling in love that never stops falling. Glorious!

Do you see my disappointment now that she stopped at the end of verse 7? All of the hard work, all of the purification, all of the seeing Him, just to stop short of getting to answer God’s big question, “Whom shall I send?” When you have claimed all five of the things Isaiah claimed, watch yourself in amazement when your hand flies up into the air like a rocket and you hear yourself proclaiming, “ooh, ooh, pick me. I’ll go”.