One tragedy of Christian thinking that I heard David Hamilton speak about once, is the popular mindset of being God’s servants waiting for him to tell us what to do. It asserts that we shouldn’t act until we are absolutely sure it is God directing us, not some other influence. So much value is placed on hearing God’s voice that we often remain idle until he commands us. Or our ministries remain stagnant until he forcefully prunes us.
God wants more than a servant/master relationship with us. Imagine if you had a girlfriend and you never bought her flowers. Finally she was so upset about this that she loudly commanded, “go buy me flowers now!” Now imagine you obeyed and brought her some flowers. Do you think she would be very pleased with this gift? Would it be very special to her? No, of course not, because she had to tell you!
God wants to be in a love relationship with us. In a love relationship you spend lots of time getting to know your partner, learning his or her desires, dreams, passions, and then working to fulfill those things before they have to ask. If, instead, you were to buy your girlfriend flowers before she had to ask you, it might be something that pleased and surprised her!
We are to seek God out and know him. We need to be familiar with his dreams, his desires, his passions, and then work to see those things come true! Let's get started before he has to specifically tell us! I think God waits and waits for us to do something that will bless his heart. He has made his dreams very clearly known to us through his word. But we sit idly for so long, trying to divine his voice that finally God has to command us to do something! It shouldn’t be like that.
Isaiah overheard God asking the question out loud, “Who will go?” The question wasn’t a command, it wasn’t directed at Isaiah. Isaiah simply became aware of God’s desires, and he jumped at the opportunity to bless God. He stood up and declared, “here I am, Lord, send me!”
Of course we are to remain mindful of God’s specific direction. He will reveal strategy to us once we get started. And if our heart is to bless God, and we unintentionally start down a wrong path, we can be sure he will redirect us! In this way we partner with him.
SPF
