Here I am; send me
Isaiah had just seen God’s holiness and felt how small and unclean he was. Only after he was forgiven did he hear the question, and only then did he answer. Being sent begins with being cleansed.
His answer is short and brave: “Here am I.” He didn’t ask where, or for how long. Our readiness to say yes is often more important to God than our sense of being qualified.
Lord, You have forgiven me and called me Yours. Here I am. Send me wherever You want today, and make me willing. Amen.
הִנְנִי (hineni (hin-NAY-nee)). “Here I am.” It is more than a location; it means “I am present and ready.” Abraham, Moses and Samuel said the same word when God called them.
Isaiah’s vision in the temple took place around 740 BC, “in the year that King Uzziah died.” It was the start of a prophetic ministry that lasted decades under several kings of Judah.
Gladys Aylward, a 28-year-old London parlourmaid who had been turned down by a mission agency, left Liverpool for China on her own savings. She settled in Yangcheng, and her story later inspired the film The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.