“It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of His robe filled the Temple. Attending Him were mighty seraphim, each having six wings…They were calling out to each other, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! The whole earth is filled with His glory!’” (Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3 NLT)
It’s difficult for us to imagine what Isaiah was feeling in those moments. Only a small percentage of God’s followers are privileged to experience such personal audiences with the God of Creation. Perhaps Peter, James, and John could relate when Jesus’ appearance was transformed, and they were visited by Elijah and Moses. (Mark 9:2-4)
In my mind’s eye I see Isaiah still, engrossed by the beauty of the presence of the Lord, listening intently, captivated by God’s voice. While we may not experience visions of God as Isaiah did, we nonetheless have opportunities to sit in God’s presence, worship and listen to His voice. There are things that this unique experience taught Isaiah and I believe can teach us.
In verse 5 we’re told: “Then I said, ‘Its’ all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have filthy lips, and I live among a people with filthy lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.’” Worship invites us not only to gain a clearer vision of God, but a more accurate vision of ourselves. Unless we see our wretchedness in the presence of the Lord, we’ll not understand our need to have complete dependence upon Him.
If our attitude is: “I’ve got this Christianity thing! I’m a good person and I’m living right. What else could I possibly need?” then we’ll likely never come to terms with our own depravity, wretchedness, ugliness, and lostness in comparison to our holy, righteous, and perfect Savior. Seeing God accurately, enables us to see ourselves more clearly, but it also creates in us a hunger to serve, to be used of God.
In the following verses in chapter 6 we see God removing Isaiah’s guilt, then calling him into service. That’s a picture of what should happen in each of our lives. We have a moment when we finally begin to see God more clearly, we recognize what a mess we are, seek His forgiveness, are baptized as a public testimony to what the Lord is doing in our lives, then we’re called to service.
What might that look like for you and me? It essentially means, as I’ve said before, putting our “YES” on the table. That simply means we take a blank sheet of paper, write “YES!” in big bold letters and put our signature at the bottom. What does that mean? It means whatever the Lord says to do, our answer is “YES!” We don’t need to know the specific assignment, all we need to know is the Lord is calling us, and He will equip us.
In some ways it’s like marriage. We stand at the altar pledging to one another our lifelong devotion and we don’t have a clue what that’s going to look like. All we have is our love for one another and we’re hopeful that will be enough. But based on current statistics, it’s not enough for about 4 in 10 couples who give up and give in to divorce. It’s hard to know how that compares with how many begin their walk with God, but fall away.
All I know is if we’ll take the time and make the effort to go “all in,” get a clear vision of the Lord, see ourselves in proper perspective, yield our life and allegiance to Him and follow Him as He leads, we’ll find He’s more than adequate to meet our every need and use us in ways we haven’t imagined He could.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 