Burning Coals

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each wit six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; 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 6:1-8

It's been five months since I read this passage. Five months since I fell on my face before the Lord in repentance. Six months since I proclaimed this to be my year of consecration. Yesterday, as I stood in church and let the words of the prophet Isaiah flood over me, I sensed the Spirit asking me for a halfway point progress report.

He knows where I've made strides, where I've but taken a few steps, and where I've not moved at all (or fallen back to where I started). He doesn't need me to present Him with a report card. Yet I clearly sensed Him asking, "Tyler, how have you been doing? Are you any closer to the holiness I desire in your life than you were at the start of this year?"

My answer, a feeble, "Well, I think so." Conviction. "A little bit." More conviction. "I guess I could have put more effort in, been more intentional." Even more conviction. "Oh Lord, woe to me! I am a woman of unclean lips! In spite of my desire to do better and be better I continually fail. My lips spew forth impatience, selfish words, profanities." And I know in that moment that the impurities that spill from my mouth are but an overflow from a mind filled with filth and a heart set on selfish desires.

Once again, I will stop and turn. Turn away from the evil that I repeatedly find myself drawn into; turn back towards the God who loves me. And I will try, once again, to follow Him, be like Him, and serve Him.

Thank-you, Sandy, for giving us the opportunity to share how God speaks to us this summer.