Here I am, Lord!
Isaiah 6:1-8
There is a well-known hymn in the United Methodist Hymnal called “Here I am, Lord.”
“‘I, the lord of sea and Sky, I have heard my people cry. All who dwell in dark and sin my hand will save.
I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright. Who will bear my light to them? Whom shall I send?’
Here I am Lord. Is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go, Lord, if you lead me. I will hold your people in my heart.”
(United Methodist Hymnal #593)
It’s a hymn that is attributed to Isaiah 6:8, where the prophet Isaiah receives a vision of God asking, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” and Isaiah responding “Here am I; send me!”
As Christians, we have many stories of God calling surprising people to do important things. Moses, Samuel, Jeremiah, and Isaiah all were people called by God to do the often difficult and thankless work of sharing God’s words with the “powers that be.” Often, this call put their very lives in danger.
Many who heard that call from God struggled to respond. Moses complained about his speech impediment. Samuel had to hear the call from God multiple times before he realized it was actually God speaking. Jeremiah argued with God saying, “I am only a boy!” Isaiah cried out woefully about his unworthiness: “I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips!”
It can be really easy to believe that God doesn’t have anything really important for us to do because we aren’t good enough to do it. Perhaps we believe we have nothing to say because we are terrified of public speaking. We don’t sing because we believe we can’t even carry a tune in a bucket. We don’t speak up when we notice something is wrong because we don’t feel like we have enough courage. We don’t support causes because we don’t believe we have enough to spare.
Or we just keep telling ourselves we aren’t really good enough, someone else will do it.
The hymn “Here I am Lord,” is corny but also moving. It gets sung a lot in the context of ordination and vocation. But this hymnal also neglects to mention the fact that some of the most important people in our history whom God has called to do vital and important things for the kin-dom of God were people who first had no belief in themselves.
The struggle we have with unworthiness is universal. What matters is if we can recognize that for the lie that it is.
God made us. God loves us. That is enough to be worthy of that which God is calling us to do.
Where in your life have you felt unworthy to step forward when you should have?
