Here I Am, Send Me

There comes a time in the life of every believer when you need more than routine. You need a revelation of the Lord. For too many of us it has been far too long since we last saw God in a way that uprooted us and put us back together differently. Our faith has quietly become mechanical. So much of what we do runs on a sense of duty rather than a fire that burns and keeps burning. The sixth chapter of Isaiah is the story of a man whose fire was rekindled, and it begins with an encounter that changed everything.

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. And one cried unto another, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Isaiah 6:1–3

Three things stand out in this passage, and they map the shape of any real meeting with God: the need for it, the effect of it, and the mission that flows out of it. Isaiah was no beginner. He had already been prophesying for years, through the reign of Uzziah and alongside his son Jotham. Yet it was after this vision that he wrote the greatest words of his book: the virgin who would conceive, the promise that those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 who saves by his wounds. One encounter unlocked a lifetime of fruit. Do not assume you are past your need for a fresh sight of God.

It Humbles You

A genuine revelation of God does two things at once, and the first is that it humbles you. No one who has truly seen the Lord walks away with their chest puffed out. They come out weeping, like Isaiah: "Woe is me, for I am undone." You may feel that you have your life nicely arranged, that on the whole you are doing fine. And you may go on feeling that right up until you actually meet God.

Here is why we so rarely feel undone: we are constantly measuring ourselves against the wrong standard. We measure ourselves against each other. If I compare myself to you, I will decide I am not so bad. If I compare how many hours I spend in the Bible with how long someone else spends, I will feel good about myself. If I compare how I treat people with how the next person treats people, a satisfied smile spreads across my face. But Scripture says that those who measure themselves by themselves, comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

For we dare not... compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.

2 Corinthians 10:12

So try a different comparison. Compare how you treat people with how Jesus treated them. Compare how you pray with how Jesus prayed. Compare how you speak about others with how He spoke about others. Compare how you read Scripture with how He read it. And please do not tell me, "But I am not Jesus." Do you know what God's standard of holiness actually is? It is not a rule or a level. It is a Person. Jesus is the standard. "Be perfect," He said, "even as your Father in heaven is perfect." When Isaiah saw the magnitude of that holiness and heard the seraphim cry "Holy, holy, holy," there was only one honest response left to him: I am undone. Much of the pride, arrogance, and quarreling that fills church life comes from exactly one place, a lack of any real revelation of God.

And It Lifts You Up

But a revelation of God does not leave you crushed on the floor. In the very same moment that it humbles you, it lifts you up. The same sight that shows you how unworthy you are and how much you need a Savior is the sight that raises you, the instant you accept it. Because the Lord does not only reveal that He is holy. He reveals that He is loving toward you. He is the just God who justifies the wicked.

Watch how it happens in the text. The instant Isaiah cries out that he is undone, an angel flies to him with a live coal taken from the altar. And what was on that altar? The sacrifice. Think of it as the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, present there in the place of atonement. The coal that touches Isaiah's lips carries the message of the gospel to him: that his sin, which was plenty, has been dealt with.

Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

Isaiah 6:7

Your iniquity has been cancelled. The debt you owed, and you owed so much, has been paid in full, and it was paid at the cost of Someone's life. Notice what does the lifting. It is not achieved by highlighting anything in you, anything you have done, anything you have brought to God. It is achieved by highlighting everything God has done for you in Christ Jesus, all of it undeserved. That is the strange grace of a true encounter: it empties your hands and fills them again at the same moment.

Whom Shall I Send?

Only now, after the humbling and the lifting, does the commission come. "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And Isaiah has just one answer to give: "Here am I; send me." Do you see why he had no other option? Necessity had been laid on him. How could he not go, when the One who deserved to be crushed for Isaiah's sin was not crushed, but instead reached down to purge him? He was not doing God a favor by going. He simply had to go. As Paul would later say, the love of Christ compels us.

For the love of Christ constraineth us.

2 Corinthians 5:14

This matters, because there is more than one reason a person can volunteer. "Here am I, send me" is not the cry of someone striking a bargain, going only so they can turn around and say, "Now, God, make sure You take care of me." It is not the cry of someone earning credit, going so they can claim they deserve something in return. It is the cry of a heart overwhelmed by grace, a heart that looks at all God has done and says, "Who am I not to go?" If the whole world were yours to give, it would still be a gift far too small; love so amazing and so divine simply asks for your whole life, and gladly you give it.

And this is why the motive is everything. God actually warned Isaiah that the people he was being sent to would not listen, that they would be hardened and would fall. Isaiah did not withdraw. Because he was not, finally, going for the people. He was going for God. That is the whole purpose of the revelation: that God would lay hold of a person, and that person would then abandon everything to lay hold of the very reason he was laid hold of.

Maybe your zeal gets you started. Maybe righteous indignation at all that is wrong puts you on the road. But indignation can only carry you so far. You have to arrive at the place where it is God, and God alone, who is sending you. Because ask yourself honestly: what will you do when the people you are serving turn on you, slander you, wound you? What happens if, out on the mission, you lose your job, your marriage strains, your health fails? Will you stop going when people hurt you, when friends desert you the way Demas deserted Paul, when even those over you say bitter things? If you went out for the sake of men, or for the sake of being blessed, you will not last. Only one who is going for God will go all the way.

The Year King Uzziah Died

There is one more phrase to weigh, and it is the very first one: "in the year that King Uzziah died." That is not a throwaway date. Uzziah became king at sixteen and reigned fifty-two years. He was largely a good king who sought God, and under him Israel enjoyed military strength, commercial growth, and rare stability and prosperity. As long as he trusted God, he was strong. But when he grew strong his heart was lifted up, and he overstepped into the temple to do what was not his to do. He ended his life a leper, isolated until he died. To say "in the year King Uzziah died" is like saying "in the year a great and beloved leader died", the death of a whole era. Where was the Lord in all of that upheaval?

As a picture, Uzziah stands for anything that rises up and takes the place that belongs to God alone. Often these are good things: a home, a job, a business, a career, a friendship, a ministry, a leader, even a church. But over time the gift can grow more important to us than the Giver. We run to the thing before we run to God. Notice too what the name Uzziah means: "God is my strength." And Scripture says as long as he leaned on God, he was strong. His downfall was subtle. Somewhere along the way, "God is my strength" quietly became "my strength is my god." When that happens, it becomes almost impossible to see the true God clearly. Everything gets muddled.

It is worth being honest that the very strengths God builds in us can curdle when we push them to the extreme and enthrone them. Firmness hardens into stubbornness. A healthy sense of self-worth swells into pride. Diplomacy decays into deceit. Peace-seeking shrinks into cowardice. Even a word God genuinely spoke for one season can calcify into dead tradition when we keep clinging to it long after He has moved on. Sometimes the fresh vision of God only comes after the thing we relied on is removed. It may take a hard year, a loss, a crisis, before we finally see the Lord high and lifted up.

So let this be the invitation. Whatever has risen up to sit on the throne of your life, name it and hand it back to Him. Ask God to be your strength again, not the thing you have made your strength. And when your sight of Him is restored, do not be surprised if the same encounter that brings you low is the one that raises you, and then turns you toward the door. When He asks who will go, may you find, rising up from a heart that has finally seen how much it has been forgiven, the only answer worth giving: Here am I. Send me.