Day 5 of 6 — Glow in the Dark. About 3 minutes.
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.
Isaiah 6:8
William Carey repaired shoes for a living. He was apprenticed to the trade at fourteen and he worked at a bench, and while he worked he taught himself Greek, Hebrew, Dutch, French and Italian, which is not the usual run of things for a cobbler in an English village. He was not educated, connected, wealthy or well. He had a map on his wall and a growing conviction that the people on it had never heard. When he put that conviction to the ministers around him, the common view of the day was that if God intended to reach the heathen He would manage it without their help. Carey sailed anyway. In 1793 he came ashore near Calcutta with his wife and children in a rowboat, slipping past the patrols of the East India Company, which did not want missionaries in its territory. He never came home. He spent the rest of his life there.
Isaiah heard a question in the year that king Uzziah died. Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? It is worth noticing what kind of question that is. God was not asking for advice, and He was not asking for volunteers for a committee. He was asking for a person. The answer Isaiah gave was five words long and contained no conditions. Here am I; send me.
He did not ask where. He did not ask for how long, or what it would cost, or whether it would work. All of that came later in the chapter, and when it came it was not encouraging. God told him the people would not listen. Isaiah went anyway, because the answer had already been given and it had been given to a person, not to a proposal.
So the honest question today is not whether missions is important. You already believe that or you would not be reading this. The honest question is whether you have ever actually asked. Many of us have carefully avoided putting it to God plainly, because we are afraid of the answer, and we call that being realistic. Maybe you are a teenager, or in your twenties with nothing holding you, or older and sure that door shut years ago. Abram was seventy five. Ask Him today, out loud and in those words, whether He wants you to go. Mean the question. Then be still long enough to hear.
Growth principle: God is still asking whom shall I send, and the answer He waits for is a person, not a plan.
Take it with you: Ask God plainly today, out loud, whether He is calling you to go, and be still long enough to listen.
Pause and pray: Lord, I have avoided asking You this because I was afraid of what You might say. I am asking now. If You are calling me to go, make it clear, and make me willing. Amen.
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