WHO WILL GO FOR US?

8 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 (KJV)

 

            I am not quite sure why my mind has been traveling back near fifty years ago but it has.  In Mrs. Walker’s class at Hoods School, I well remember how she would come into class and say “Who would like to….?” And every hand in the first through third grades would be raised in anticipation of getting to do something.  We had no idea what we were volunteering for but in our youthfulness each one of us wanted to be selected first.  What an honor if we were selected to stand and lead in the Pledge of Allegiance or lead in The Lord’s Prayer.  Sometimes we were chosen to count how many students would be eating lunch that was prepared by Mrs. Orez Blakely.  There were times when some of the older students were called upon to help the younger students in their reading or arithmetic.  During the winter time two or three students would be chosen each day to go to the coal pile and get coal in the scuttles for the pot-bellied heater that heated our class rooms.  A few times during the year most all of us helped put some kind of compound on the floors and we would walk on it most of the day then sweep it up at the end of the day.   Whatever the task we were proud to be called upon to do it. 

            What has happened to the enthusiasm of serving, especially in serving the Lord?   In our youthful enthusiasm the Lord would not have gotten the full question out before many hands would have been raised and voices crying out “Pick me! Pick me!”  Not so today, it seems that many must have their arms twisted or the Lord has to plead for a long time before we consider a positive response.  Just as in Isaiah’s time, the call is very important.  The job has people’s lives hanging in the balance.  There isn’t time for arm twisting, begging and pleading.  We must be about the Father’s business.

            Just as in our childhood there is a call for leadership, maybe not to just lead in the pledge or the prayer but to lead in government or in the church.  God leads in other things also, in service, maybe not in toting a coal scuttle but maybe in driving or doing mechanic work on the trucks that haul the coal.  We may not be compounding the old wood floors but laying or maintaining the flooring used today.  God wants to use many people today to let Jesus shine as they do A/C and heating work, machine work, medical service, computer service, teaching etc.  Most of the pastors I have known had another vocation other than that of being a pastor.

            If we are privileged to wake in the morning, the Lord will say first thing “Who will go for me?”  You are not going somewhere to just punch a clock and do a day’s work.  You are going to do a service for the Lord as you do a service for your employer.  As we approach our last days I hope we will want to say “it has been an honor just to serve the Lord.”

 

Yours in Christ,

 

Brother Randy Burtram