Answering the Call

Monday Manna is hosted this week at An Open Book.

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" Isaiah 6:8

I was so excited to see that Joanne had chosen this verse for Monday Manna this week! This is one of my favorites because it's tied in with missions so often, and as you know, missions is near and dear to my heart. But as I thought about this verse, my mind went back to something directly related to church—our local church.

You see, although I have five kids, I'm not a kid-loving person. I don't go out of my way to be with children. That being said, I had been praying and asking God to use me in some way in our local church. So, when my phone rang and I was asked to help teach the grade school girls on Wednesday nights, I said yes, with no dithering about it. And I started praying! I'm not only not a kid-loving person, but I'm not a teacher. I'm very capable of working with the kids, and teaching them, but it's not one of those things that turns my crank and that I get excited about.

But you know what? That doesn't matter.

What does matter is a willing spirit. When I received that call, I felt God was asking, 'Who shall I send? Who will go for us?' And although my knees were knocking and my brain was squawking, I said 'Here I am. Send me!' There is no exception clause to that verse—there's no 'only if it's doing what I want to do'. In fact, in that verse God doesn't say where or what. He just said 'who'.

I've come to see that there are times in our lives when we need to step up and fill the gap, even if we're not a perfect fit for the gap that's there. Please understand that I am not endorsing filling our plate with things that shouldn't be there. Things that are good but take up the space that the best is supposed to be taking. I'm not endorsing jumping in and saying yes to everything. What I'm saying is that there are times when there's a real need that needs to be filled, that we're capable of filling. Those are the times that we need to step forward and say yes to, even though we'd rather not. When that happens, we need to keep praying that the Lord of the harvest will send forth the laborer to take over for us.

I know that some people have way too much on their plate—those are not the people I'm talking about. I'm talking to people like me. People who do have some room on their plate. We can fill a hole without over-burdening ourselves, or our families. It doesn't have to be a perfect a fit for us if we're filling a hole we're capable of filling. Our willing spirit and love for God will fill the cracks enough until a person who is a perfect fit comes along.

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