Seeing comes first

I’ve always loved the story of Isaiah’s commission found in Isaiah 6. It’s full of power, majesty, fire, strange creatures, shaking, burning, and weeping. Suffice it to say, there’s a lot going on in this story that can get our attention!

But what strikes me is the response of Isaiah at the end of the story when the Lord asked him to sign up to serve:

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 ‭NIV, emphasis mine)

The story begins with Isaiah seeing the Lord, and it ends with Isaiah serving the Lord. I think the takeaway for us is that we serve what we see, and seeing comes first.

If we’re willing to do a checkup on our lives, we’ll see that this truth plays out all day, every day. We give our time, treasures, and talents to whatever we’re looking at. If we’re focused on career advancement, we’ll serve the job at the expense of everything else.

We serve what we see, and because Isaiah saw the Lord, his response was to serve the Lord. “Here am I. Send me.”

In another familiar passage, Jesus was preparing to send His disciples out into the harvest field. He told them about how more workers were needed and reminded them that talking to the Father about it would be better than complaining to each other about it. But those weren’t the first instructions Jesus gave them about the harvest.

Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. (John‬ ‭4:35‬ ‭NIV, emphasis mine)

The first thing He told them to do was see the harvest because Jesus knew that we serve what we see. Jesus saw the crowds first, and then He was moved by compassion for them (Mark 6:34). He wants us to do the same. Today, if we’ll truly see people, we’ll serve them.

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