Say Yes to Where Jesus Is Sending You
I remember it like it was yesterday.
It was January of 2006, and I was back at my home church helping with youth ministry. Nothing about the night felt particularly significant. I ended up behind the sound board — not because I was gifted at it, but because it was the greatest help I could offer that night.
We had invited a ministry team from Cincinnati Christian University to lead for the evening. The room was fuller than it had been in months. Students were engaged, worship was alive, and I was just trying to make sure the microphones worked.
And then, out of nowhere, God interrupted me.
As I watched a group of college students — my peers — lead our youth group, something stirred in me I couldn’t shake. It wasn’t loud, and it wasn’t dramatic. But in the middle of adjusting volume knobs and checking cables, I sensed what I can only describe as the Spirit of God whisper:
“This is what I have you here for.”
And just like that, something in my life changed.
A calling was born.
A direction was set.
Not because I was seeking it — but because God ambushed me with it.
Isaiah 6 is a moment like that.
A divine ambush.
An unexpected interruption.
A calling wrapped in glory.
And Isaiah’s story gives us a pattern we still have to follow today if we’re going to be the kind of people who say yes to where Jesus is sending us.
There are three movements in Isaiah 6:1–8.
And they build on each other.
1. RECOGNIZE — A Greater View of God
Isaiah 6:1–4
Before Isaiah ever hears God’s voice, he sees God’s holiness.
“High and exalted.”
“Train of His robe filled the temple.”
“Holy, holy, holy.”
Isaiah’s calling doesn’t begin with clarity of purpose —
it begins with a growing clarity of a Person.
Not clarity about what God wanted him to do,
but clarity about the God who was calling him to be His.
Because a right view of God puts everything else in the right place:
our fears
our identity
our sin
our direction
our relationships
our purpose
This is why so many of us struggle with calling:
We want God’s guidance without wanting God’s presence.
We want direction without devotion.
We want the assignment without the awe.
But calling always flows out of encounter.
Direction flows out of revelation.
Purpose flows out of presence.
Isaiah doesn’t get a mission until he gets a vision.
And the vision isn’t about Isaiah — it’s about the God who fills the room.
2. RECEIVE — The Calling of Being Sent by God
Isaiah 6:5–7
After seeing God, Isaiah sees himself.
“Woe is me… I am undone.”
He doesn’t volunteer yet.
He doesn’t leap into leadership.
He doesn’t outline a strategy for Jerusalem.
He confesses.
And God meets Isaiah’s confession with cleansing.
The coal wasn’t punishment — it was preparation.
God wasn’t shaming Isaiah — He was shaping him.
God prepares the places He intends to use.
God prepares the people He intends to send.
Isaiah’s calling didn’t come from confidence.
It came from mercy.
That’s always how calling works.
God cleanses before He commissions.
God forgives before He sends.
God restores before He assigns.
You don’t receive a calling because you’re worthy.
You receive a calling because God is gracious.
3. REALIZE — The Space You Are In Is the Place God Has Sent You
Isaiah 6:8 + Acts 17:26–27
After the cleansing comes the question:
“Whom shall I send?
And who will go for Us?”
And Isaiah responds with the words every Christian eventually needs to say:
“Here am I. Send me.”
But here’s where Acts 17 helps us understand what that really means.
Paul says God:
“determined the exact times and places where they should live.”
(Acts 17:26)
In other words:
Your location is not an accident.
Your placement is not random.
Your assignment is not somewhere else — it’s right where you are.
Sometimes we miss God’s calling because we keep imagining it somewhere “bigger,” “harder,” or “more significant.”
But the assignment God is calling you into is often:
the student who keeps walking into your orbit
the neighbor whose name you know but story you don’t
the coworker who keeps asking questions
the kid in your small group who hasn’t bought in yet
the family that sits near you every Sunday
the “One” God won’t let your heart forget
You don’t need a new zip code for a mission field.
You need new eyes for the field you’re already standing in.
God isn’t asking you to do everything.
He’s asking you to say yes to what He’s placed in front of you.
So—Will You Say Yes?
Isaiah’s calling wasn’t extraordinary because of where he was sent.
It was extraordinary because he said yes.
And that’s the heart of this whole passage.
Not perfection.
Not performance.
Not power.
Just obedience.
You can’t say yes for someone else.
You can’t live someone else’s calling.
You can’t decipher someone else’s assignment.
The best possible life for you is the life where you obey what God is saying to you.
So today, let this become your prayer:
“Lord, give me a greater view of You.
Give me a heart ready to receive Your calling.
Give me eyes to see that where I am —
is exactly where You have sent me.”
And let the answer of your life echo Isaiah’s:
Here am I, Lord. Send me.
Some of us aren’t readers necessarily, but listeners. We find value when things are sang and offered over us. Recently, our worship teams have been including a not-so-recent song as a way to help us declare back to God our desire and our commitment to being sent. I offer it to you as a way to engage this same confession and acceptance of his commission.
I hope this inspires you to be sent:
