Here am I! Send me

Isaiah 6:8 NKJV

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, And who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”

I was born into a Lebanese family, and I was raised as a cultural Christian.  For those of you who don’t know much about Lebanon, let me tell you how things work here.  Culture is everything: it is the root of our society, it dictates the way we live, it dictates our family life, it even dictates our Christian belief.  My idea of being a Christian at the time revolved around going to church on Sundays, mostly because I was forced to, and the best part of being a Christian was playing with fireworks on Christian holidays.

My understanding at the time was that anyone called by God had to be a man wearing a black robe, living a simple solitary life and had to be poor.  The idea was if God was calling me to follow him, he had to part the skies and call my name with a thunderous voice. Only then would I believe I was called.  I believed the most confusing aspect of God was his will: whenever something bad happened, people told me “Well that’s just God’s will”.  When someone died unexpectedly or someone got sick or even when a natural disaster killed thousands, my family would say “Well that’s just God’s will”.  There was this idea that God was responsible for everything on this earth, and that would include both good and bad things.  Even when my business was destroyed because of a flood, the insurance wouldn’t pay me because apparently it was “An act of God”.  In conclusion, my understanding was that everything was under his control and it all depended on one thing, God’s mood.

Culture is a beautiful thing but it shouldn’t dictate how we live our lives.  Around 8 years ago I met God and no, he didn’t part the skies; I met him through his living word.  I found out that God doesn’t change and it turns out he wasn’t moody. Through his word God revealed his will to me, and I learnt that nothing evil came from him but on the contrary everything that was good in this life came from him. I understood that he didn’t just love all humanity but he himself was love, and how could love be evil?  My brothers and sisters, God has called us as his personal representatives to change the world we live in: he has called us to pray his will on this earth.  We the church are now responsible for manifesting his will on this earth.  When he said “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?  The answer is us, the church - we will go and we will be his representatives on this earth.  In Luke 11 we pray ‘Your kingdom come, Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven’.  Is there evil in heaven? Is there sickness and death? Is there murder? The answer is no and that’s why we pray for his will to be done on this earth so that by the authority given to us by Jesus, we can bring heaven down to earth and manifest his perfect will in our lives and change the world we live in.  So now let each and every one of us answer the question that God has asked, “Who will go for us?”  I will.