Send Me: A Commentary on Isaiah’s Calling

5 Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.
6 Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar:
7 And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.

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 6:5-8

Though the Apostle Paul’s “calling” and conversion offers a useful place for believers and unbelievers alike to begin understanding their own sense of “calling,” the prophet Isaiah’s “calling” does so in similar fashion. (See my commentary on Paul’s calling:

Who Art Thou, Lord?: A Commentary on Paul’s Calling

Although there have been men and women throughout scripture who have been privy to eternal majesties and have been assigned to spectacular missions by God himself, their qualifications were not much different than our own. James writes of the prophet Elijah “that he was a man subject to like passions even as we are.” Notwithstanding, the virtue and nobility of those men and women selected by God for magnificent purposes lie not in the fact that they were sinless and perfect like our Lord, but within the fact that they were deeply aware of, and admitted their own sinfulness when others were not and would not. We see this here explicitly in the “calling” of Isaiah.

Although Isaiah’s vision of the throne and his subsequent response, “Here am I; send me” is quite familiar to most, what’s most impressive about the prophet is his acknowledgement of his own “unclean lips,” and God’s subsequent purging of his sin with “live (fiery) coals.”

And herein lies in Isaiah’s “calling” two important elements for coming to understand one’s “calling”: 1. A candid, frank and transparent acknowledgement of one’s own mortality and frailties in face of His immorality and perfection 2. Purging through the fire of enduring what this awareness inevitably brings-often through “suffering” (Acts 9:16)- and will continue to bring while responding to this “calling.”

For what was Isaiah’s first response to this charge, invitation, summons, or “calling” to the Lord’s queries: “Whom shall I send and Who shall go for us?”

Isaiah was first completely assured of his own forgiveness for his weaknesses and shortcomings wrought in deep humility and awareness that all that is good and that God will do through him in this “calling” is from the LORD, and having been “sent” he experienced “purging” often through “suffering” prior to and continuously while serving people.