Rethinking the Call to Missions

On Friday, at the closing luncheon for our latest Candidate Orientation Program at PIONEERS, the worship leader brought our attention to Isaiah 6:8 -- the call of Isaiah. He pointed out, however, that it really isn't a call in the sense that we often think of a call. Isaiah is more or less eavesdropping on something taking place in the heavens. He is not actively involved in the events taking place, he's just witnessing them. So he's there when God asks, "Whom shall I send and who will go for us?" Isaiah speaks up at this point. He makes himself known ("Here am I") and declares his willingness to be the answer to God's question ("Send me").

I think it's important to note that God does not tell Isaiah to go, nor does He address Isaiah specifically ("Will you go for me, Isaiah?"). Rather, He asks a broad question that implies the value He places on someone being sent out on His behalf.

I would like to suggest that it is still this way. How often I speak to people who are waiting for God to tell them to go, or who are waiting for the Lord to specifically ask them to go! They are looking for a clear sign from God -- something meant just for them. But the calling has already been given -- it is clear throughout the Word from Genesis 12 through to the end of the story in Revelation. The broad question has been asked since the beginning of time: Whom shall I send and who will go for us? God is calling on us to answer this question the way Isaiah did, by offering ourselves to Him at the very moment when we first become aware that He is still asking that question a couple thousand years later.

Realization that the question has been asked and is still being asked IS the call, and like Isaiah, we ought to be willing to respond without hesitation and without questioning whether it was really meant for me. Such questioning, in my experience, is often just a search for a way out because we do not want to be sent. We would much rather fade into the background and live out our days undisturbed by things of eternal consequence.

But this post is not meant to be a condemnation so much as it is a challenge to re-think our idea about "calling". The command is clear -- God wants us to be His representatives on earth. Do we have the courage and perspective to fulfill this calling just as Isaiah did? The calling is a group one -- issued to a community of people (all those who identify themselves as children of God), but the response is a specific one that each of us must make.