Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. (Galatians 5:25, NIV)
What should I write about? Sometimes that question is easily answered. It comes weeks in advance. Other times, it’s a process that starts with another question: What have I been talking to God about recently?
Lately, determining God’s will has been on the top of my mind. I drilled down a bit and felt the Spirit say, “Ask to be used by God, and there you’ll find His will.”
That question got me thinking about car rides. It’s often on my way to work—a golf course, usually—that I ask God to use me to tell His stories, be His light, and be His hands. On one such occasion, moments after finishing this prayer, a player walked up to my car as I pulled into the media parking lot. We started a conversation that led to one of my favorite stories about the true hardscrabble life of a touring pro. And this story directly led to this player receiving financial backing to continue her dream.
God is in the details, the specifics. Sometimes, we get lost in the big-picture questions when all He really wants us to do is pray a specific prayer: Lord, use me today.
I was walking to the car as I was thinking about this devotion on my way to the grocery store. I began to sing an old familiar hymn, “Here I Am,” as I climbed into the driver’s seat.
The chorus goes like this:
Here I am, Lord
Is it I, Lord?
I have heard You calling in the night
I will go, Lord
If You lead me
I will hold Your people in my heart
Minutes later, while walking into Publix, I fell in line behind a man wearing a black T-shirt that had “HERE AM I, SEND ME” written in enormous white letters across his back.
I am not kidding!
I laughed to myself, thinking about how God is so truly in the details that He’d write them on a walking billboard as if to say, “YES, WRITE THIS.”
In Isaiah chapter 6, we find a humbled Isaiah realizing that he is unclean before the Lord and “ruined.” An angel took a live coal from the altar and touched it to Isaiah’s lips, saying “your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
“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)
PRAYER: Father God, we ask for you to use us today for your divine purpose. Don’t let us become distracted by our will. Instead, let us be in tune with what you’d have for us. But first, we ask that you cleanse us. Forgive us our sins, Lord. Forgive all the times that we’ve whiffed our holy assignments. Today we recommit to being in tune with your Spirit throughout each day, to being purified so that we may not miss an opportunity to go forth and be your light.