Daily Devotional · Isaiah 6:8
Here Am I, Send Me
Reflection
"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!'" Isaiah 6:8 is one of the most celebrated moments of prophetic commissioning in the Bible. But the context is essential: it did not begin with eagerness. It began with collapse. Isaiah saw the Lord high and exalted. He said: I am ruined. I am a man of unclean lips. The seraph flew to him with a live coal from the altar. Your guilt is taken away. Your sin is atoned for. Only then — after the cleansing — does the call come. And the call is not directed at Isaiah specifically. It is a question asked in the heavenly council: "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" The question is open. Isaiah's response is not reluctant. After the encounter with holiness and the gift of forgiveness, he leaps. "Here am I. Send me!" The remarkable thing is what Isaiah does not ask: he does not ask what the mission is. He does not negotiate the terms. He does not inquire about the audience or the method or the likely reception. He simply volunteers. The mission, when explained, turned out to be extraordinarily difficult: preach to people who will not hear, until the cities are desolate. The assignment he signed up for was harder than anything he knew in advance. But the commissioning preceded the content. The willingness preceded the knowledge. "Here am I" came before "what is it?"
Background
Isaiah's call in chapter 6 has an unusual feature: it comes in the middle of the book, not at the beginning. This has led some scholars to argue it is a renewal of calling rather than an initial one, or that it was placed here thematically. The structure of the call — vision, conviction, cleansing, commission — became the pattern for understanding prophetic calling throughout the tradition, and is echoed in Paul's Damascus road experience and in the ordination theology of many Christian traditions.
Truth
The sequence matters: cleansing first, commissioning second. You do not need to be qualified before you are sent; you need to be cleansed. The coal that touches your lips is what makes you capable of the mission, not your competence, gifting, or experience.
Application
Is there an assignment from God that you have been waiting to accept until you feel more qualified, more prepared, more cleaned up? Today, receive the coal — the forgiveness that qualifies you — and then respond as Isaiah did: Here am I. Send me. Ask God what the assignment is after you have already said yes.