Thursday Isaian 6:1-8

Prayer: Merciful God, help me with the wisdom to choose wisely in the challenges I am faced with each day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Send me

(Adapted from Christ in Our Home – daily devotions)

⁴ The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. 

I liked mechanical things ever since I was young. I liked to learn how things worked and I liked working on cars including doing tune ups and pulling motors and transmissions. I became pretty handy doing repairs around the house and enjoyed the few years that I worked at Boeing as a mechanic and for a couple of years building houses. Although I never quite made a very good carpenter. I needed more patience. But I learned a lot.

The word pivots in this passage apparently refer to the doors of the temple. What about the hardware that operates the door that allow them to open and close? To extrapolate, what are the motivations that cause us to open the door to hospitality? What causes us to go out into the community? If we close a door with a slam, or gently, what is going on? We have choices on how we do things. Why do we do them?

This may lead us to ask if there are doors that God is asking us to open? Maybe a church door? Maybe to welcome people in? Maybe to offer our talents and gifts? Or just to share our stories? Isaiah was afraid and so might we be. But even when afraid are we willing to trust God enough to open the door and ask, “Here am I; send me!”

Prayer: “Dear Lord, embolden me to be a door opener, ready to pivot when you ask, ‘Whom shall I send?’ Amen.”

Isaiah 6:1-8

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

A Vision of God in the Temple

6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty, and the hem of his robe filled the temple. ² Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. ³ And one called to another and said,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

⁴ The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke. ⁵ And I said, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”

⁶ Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs. ⁷ The seraph touched my mouth with it and said, “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” ⁸ 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!”