Please Pick Me, God!

My kids – the little traitors – tell everyone I can’t stand the song Oceans. It isn’t so much the lyrics or melody, but that for years I was living it, and not well. During a rough decade Sunday morning when it made the worship set, I broke. The deep waters he’d called me to were drowning me. My feet were failing and my eyes could not see above the waves. And at no time had I asked the Spirit to lead me to this specific place. For this assignment, I never said “please pick me, God”!

To shift the focus from my shortcomings, I began focusing on the (perceived) flaws of those worshipping around me, especially those who were really getting into it. As comedian Tim Hawkins describes worship-hand-raising, they were way past “carrying-the-TV” and onto “washing windows.” And my judgements were just as dramatic.

Did they really have a clue what they were asking God to do? Because what if he wasn’t going to lead them to another place like Africa, or to the homeless, or to the family next door? What if the trust without borders was going to take place in their own home? What if instead of calling them somewhere else, he called them to stay somewhere they’d rather not be? Did they truly desire to follow God to the DEPTHS? Because it’s not always a glamorous place. Worth it? Absolutely. Faith-building? No doubt. But not always attractive this side of eternity.

I knew I wasn’t alone, because when I took my rant to Facebook like all bitter Christians do, the responses were overwhelming. Many people boldly responded with their stories of despair in the midst of faith, and one even commented “We’re in the hard junk here, too. This ‘trust without borders’ stuff is raw.”

I now realize I was really just frustrated with where the spirit had led me. This place. This trial. I did not decide its nature or its length. I could not foresee its outcome. And in my suffering, it really sucked that I wasn’t in control. I didn’t like or trust where God was leading. I made escaping it my obsession. Instead of take me deeper, I wanted get me out. My relationship to God is what should have had my focus.

I recently read the famous commission in Isaiah 6 – the one preached at every youth retreat, revival, and church camp I attended as a teen. When God says, “Who shall I send,” and Isaiah offers the model response: “Here I am, Lord, send me.” I like to think that’s my response to God as well. But if my Oceans drama taught me anything, it was that I’m only willing to go to deeper waters when I’m comfortable with the depth and what I’ll find there. And that my trust definitely had borders.

Isaiah knew exactly where God was calling him, and it wasn’t comfortable. God’s people were stuck in a pattern of rebelling against God, ignoring/disdaining/killing the prophets who warned them, facing calamity, returning to God briefly but not completely, and then, after experiencing God’s deliverance and grace, returning to rebellion. Isaiah knew this before he said “I’m yours, let’s do this.” He was singing Oceans before it was a thing. And he knew how deep the waters might get.

If my prayer is to be “Here I am, send me” (or even “Thank you for sending me here”), it must be just as true when I know the stakes as when I don’t. No borders. I want to love God and his truth so deeply that if he needs volunteers for a seemingly impossible, thankless, and fruitless – to human eyes – task or life, my response will be “Please pick me, God!” I have a long way to go. But I’m one refrain closer than I was yesterday.