Isaiah writes, ‘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!” He said, “Go…!”’ (vv. 8-9 NIV 2011 Edition).
In the preceding Scriptures Isaiah was making all sorts of excuses and telling God why he wasn’t qualified to do the job. But in God’s kingdom, calling trumps credentials every time! And the litmus test isn’t experience or expertise, it’s availability and teachability.
If you are willing to go when God gives you the green light, He will take you to inaccessible places and do impossible things. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Esther, Moses, Samuel, David, and Isaiah all have one thing in common. They all said, ‘Here am I.’ Isn’t it ironic that we spend so much time and energy trying to figure out how to get to where God wants us to go, when all we have to do is simply say, ‘Here am I’? It’s God’s job to get us to where He wants us to go; our job is to make ourselves available. Like a doctor on call or a police officer on duty or a firefighter on shift, it’s our readiness to respond that God is looking for.
Sometimes it’s a simple prompting to go out of our way and love our next-door neighbour. Sometimes it’s a calling to move halfway around the world. But it always starts with the little three-word prayer of availability: ‘Here am I.’ That’s what Moses said at the burning bush. That’s what Caleb said when he finally set foot in the Promised Land. And that’s what God wants you to say today.
Joshua 7-9, John 1:29-51
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