Isaiah 6:8 says, And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, " here I am, send me"(esv). Almost a year ago Amy and I begin to declare this very thing in our lives. We would cry out in prayer and in our worship, "here we are Lord, use us for your kingdom and glory. Here we are, send us!". The Lord did not hesitate to answer that prayer. It was not long before we were consumed with a spirit of adoption, and our world, our lives were changed. We were introduced to our daughter and are now more than half through the process of bringing her home from half way around the world.
Through this entire process the Lord has brought me into some of the deepest revelations of Him, of His character, of His heart, of His word and most of all His love, His agape love! But through it all one continuous theme has constantly come to the surface. You see the Lord has equated our journey with Abraham, mainly Abraham and Isaac, a father and a promise. After all we faithfully declared "Here we are, Lord send us, use us" right?
Let's start with Abraham and Sarah, here they are getting up in age and still waiting on a promise from God, a son. And like most of us we believe in the promises that God has for us, we even have the faith that the promise will come. However, the thing we lack is the patience and trust. We somehow tend to think we can make the promise happen better than God can. But what ends up happening is instead of Isaac(the promise), we get Ishmael. So, the Lord has sent on this journey, and many times we have had to repent for trying to create our own way to fulfill what God has promised, or trying to do it ourselves and not trusting Him, not waiting on Him.
Now, Abraham and Isaac. Can you imagine the joy Abraham had every time he looked at his son Isaac. Knowing that Isaac was a gift from God, he was a fulfilled promise of the Lord. He had to have been one proud papa! Then, one day God says bring him as a sacrifice to Me, put him on the altar and kill him as an offering to Me(paraphrasing Gen 22 of course). And Abraham, being the man of God that he was, says yes Lord, I'll do it, I trust you. Here is Abraham saying here am I, Lord send me! God, however wasn't satisfied with a simple yes Lord, I'll do it. So Abraham gets Isaac, they grab all the stuff for the offering, Isaac carries it on his back up the mountain(without complaining). They get up there, prepare the altar, Abraham puts his son on the altar, pulls out the knife, then God says Stop! You see, through this whole journey we have been both Abraham and Isaac. God called us on this journey, and when the call came we said yes, here we are, send us Lord! But he didn't hand us everything then and there. We had to be Isaac and push on and carry our part of the offering, we had continually offer our worship and ourselves to the Lord. And now, as we are so close to the end of this part of the journey, I feel as though we are Abraham, yet it's a lot harder to pull that knife out, at times we want to try to find another way to fulfill God's promise. But I have to tell myself, it's not up to me, it's up to God!
So, I dare you, declare it "Here am I, Lord send me"! But as you do remember the Promises of God, as His word does not come back void! He is faithful, even when we lack faith. And sometimes we have the faith, but not the trust. Sometimes we have faith and trust, but no patience, that's when things really get mixed up because we try to do it ourselves. Look around in the journey that God has called you on in your life, see if you are Abraham or Isaac, or look to see if perhaps you may have maybe created an Ishmael, your own version of what God wants for you. It's OK, we all do it, but remember that your Isaac will come! "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding" Proverbs 3:5
