This Weekend, a few of us were blessed with the opportunity to travel to several places around Romania. We saw Bran (“Dracula’s”) Castle, Bucharest, Draganesti, and Craiova. While we were in Draganesti, we got to spend some time with a World Race gap year squad. It was an awesome experience to meet more people who were on the same journey as us and share stories and perspective. We ended up playing soccer all night against our Romanian friends (who were 10000000000 times more skilled than us) which was a fun and humbling experience. Because we were so outmatched, those who weren’t playing were cheering loud for every small victory we mustered on the field. We had just met them that night, so they didn’t remember our names and cheered me on by what my shirt said. I kept yelling back “My name is Isaiah!” with a smile.
So what’s in a name?
A couple of weeks ago here in Romania, I got to experience an inner healing prayer. It basically consist of letting the Lord lead you through prayer that uncovers old memories or past experiences that have brought you pain or doubt. It was an amazing experience, and I have about 8 journal pages written about all that the Lord revealed to me through it. One thing that I found very interesting is, amongst all that healing, overcoming, and God’s truth defeating the lies of the enemy, God brought me a vision of a tree half living, and half dead. I thought that the dead parts represented the people in my life who I failed to share the love of the gospel of Jesus with, but then God said “the tree is significant and your name is significant.”
After the inner healing, as I journaled and processed, I searched in the book of Isaiah for some mention of trees. At the end of Isaiah 6 I found this in verse 13: “Like a terebinth or an oak whose stump remains when it is felled. The holy seed is its stump.” I worked my way backwards through the chapter and found that God is telling Isaiah that the land will be spiritually desolate. He explains that the people must forget all that they know of God and His law so that it will be easier for them to believe and accept Jesus when He would later come to earth many years later. Basically God allowed a long time (like several centuries) of much pain and suffering in order for the people to realize how much they needed Him, and to truly understand the grace and mercy that comes through Jesus’s sacrifice. For me, this provides a pretty fresh perspective during a rough day where I’m struggling to rely on the Lord because hey, it could be several centuries of desolation and anguish waiting for Jesus to come save us.
As I continued to work backwards in the chapter, I made it to the beginning. Chapter 6 starts with Isaiah having a vision that places him the presence of God. He says to God “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, living amongst a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah felt unworthy of being in the presence of God because he knew he was a human who has sinned as all humans do. Then God says to him, “Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”
During my inner healing, I thought about all the times I felt unworthy of God’s love because of my past sins. As I read this passage, I remembered that Isaiah literally means “salvation of God.” The most amazing part of this is that we aren’t living in the Old Testament. We don’t have to hope that we are lucky enough for God to come down through a vision to hand us a unique salvation. He’s already handed it to us. A few hundred years after God gave this prophecy to Isaiah, he sent Jesus to die on the cross and make us all Isaiah. We all have “salvation of God” if we choose to accept it and follow Him.
I love how God can give prophecy in real time, and then send me to His 2,600 year old words to confirm His truth and goodness. “For the word of God is living and active” – Hebrews 4:12. True. He still uses it to speak to us every day if we’ll listen.
As if this wasn’t enough confirmation of the significance of the name Isaiah, I kept reading. Right after God gave this salvation to Isaiah, He asks, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then Isaiah says, “Here am I, send me!”
He told me “Go!” on the world race, and I said “send me!” Now that I am here, I realize He is asking me yet again, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” When I was 13 God gave me a word: “Missionary” It was more than one week each summer, it was more than short term trips to help out and experiencing a new culture, it was more than this 11 month World Race. God has called me live missionally. God has called me to be a missionary.
This isn’t 650 b.c. and Isaiah is really my middle name, but I know that I have “salvation of God”, and I have told God, “send me.” I don’t know where. I don’t know who with. I don’t know what it looks like. But I am making a promise and declaration to my Lord and setting these words in (blog)stone.
I pray a dangerous prayer.
Whatever the cost, whatever the sacrifice.
“Here am I, send me.”
