Here am I; send me
Isaiah in the temple
Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up, the temple filled with smoke, the seraphim crying Holy, holy, holy. His first response is not eagerness but ruin: Woe is me! I am undone, a man of unclean lips. Only after a coal from the altar touches his lips and his guilt is taken away does he hear the question — Whom shall I send? — and answer, Here am I; send me.
Notice the order: a vision of God's holiness, then conviction, then cleansing, then commission. Isaiah did not volunteer out of confidence. He was cleansed into willingness.
“Here I am. Send me!”
— Isaiah, in the temple — Isaiah 6:8 (WEB)
Willingness is born of worship, not self-confidence. A clear sight of God's holiness — and of his cleansing — is what makes a leader able to say, Here am I; send me.
“And how will they preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Isaiah's eager volunteering came only after his undoing and his cleansing; the order matters. A leader formed here lets the vision of God shrink his self-importance and the grace of God enlarge his willingness. He neither cowers in unworthiness nor struts in confidence, because both have been answered at the altar. The inner work is letting worship, not ambition, produce your yes.
Let worship and honest conviction precede strategy; volunteer for hard things out of a cleansed conscience, not bravado. When you ask people to step into difficult assignments, point them first to God's worth and their cleansing, not to their competence. Keep the order — God, then self-knowledge, then grace, then sending — in your own rhythms and your team's. Send people who have been to the altar, not just to the org chart.
Eager leaders skip the woe is me and rush to the send me, volunteering from ego rather than from cleansing. The result is zealous service with an unexamined heart. The blind spot is mistaking enthusiasm for the kind of willingness that worship produces.
Before you volunteer for or assign anything significant this week, spend five minutes simply on God's holiness and your own need of grace. Then offer your yes from that posture, rather than from the urge to prove yourself.
Willingness to be sent is born not from self-confidence but from an encounter with God that first humbles and then cleanses. Isaiah's send me stood on the far side of his woe is me.
Has your readiness to serve grown more out of seeing yourself clearly, or out of seeing God?