Obedience is the opener of eyes.
-George MacDonald
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying:
Who should I send? Who will go for Us?
I said:
Here I am. Send me.
(Isaiah 6:8)
Isaiah 6:8 is probably one of the most used verses in Scripture. It is just one of those verses that we throw out there to get people to go do the things that we are called to do on this earth, just like Isaiah went as God called him. However, we tend to overlook what God sent him into.
And He replied:
Go! Say to these people:
Keep listening, but do not understand;
keep looking, but do not perceive.
10 Dull the minds of these people;
deafen their ears and blind their eyes;
otherwise they might see with their eyes
and hear with their ears,
understand with their minds,
turn back, and be healed.
Then I said, “Until when, Lord?” And He replied:
Until cities lie in ruins without inhabitants,
houses are without people,
the land is ruined and desolate,
and the Lord drives the people far away,
leaving great emptiness in the land.
Though a tenth will remain in the land,
it will be burned again.
Like the terebinth or the oak
that leaves a stump when felled,
the holy seed is the stump.
(Isaiah 6:9-13)
It’s not the most heartwarming passage, but we can learn a vital lesson from it. God is basically saying that He wants Isaiah to be faithful, but no one is going to respond to God speaking through him. Matt Chandler writes in The Explicit Gospel, “Isaiah, then, is not called to be fruitful but simply to be faithful. And, in fact, he’s told he will not be fruitful… If Isaiah was a minister within today’s evangelicalism, he’d be considered an utter failure. Jeremiah would be an utter failure. Moses didn’t get to enter the Promised Land. John the Baptist didn’t get to see the ministry of Jesus. On and on we go. We would not view the ministry of these men as successful.”
So, if we “go” as Isaiah did, it does not mean we will have the success that we tend to look for. In fact, it probably means that we won’t have the success that we strive after. True success is based solely on our capacity to be faithful and obedient to God. We live in a results oriented culture following a God who just wants us to have faith and follow Him. So, I’m beginning to think we are doing this wrong. Are we just searching for results or truly investing in others? Are we just going because the guy on Sunday morning said to or are we truly caring for those around us? Are we willing to go when everything is against us and there are no results? We must be willing to throw away every preconceived idea of success and have faith that the One who holds the world is holding you. It is faithfulness that brings about obedience and true success in this world.