Send over End
“God shifts ‘Lord, end’ to ‘Lord, send!’” The speaker was Pastor Steffen Humbert and this articulation of Isaiah 6:8 echoed a messaging that has been stirring in my heart:
We want to accomplish a solution for suffering when God’s plan all along has been to send His power through us into that suffering.
To be candid, at first blush this sounds like an awful trade! Who in their right mind would want to shift from aiming at solutions to aiming at association with the problem? On a human plane, this is a laughable proposition.
But when Jesus chose to associate with our sin and suffering, it proved to be the very mechanism by which our redemption was secured, and we are called to follow His example!
This truth is applicable to countless societal ills, but in my world it is perhaps most visible in service to the orphan. Brooke and I have the privilege of serving with A Fearless Life, an organization with a mission to find and fund a family for every adoption-eligible foster child in America. As we work to mobilize Jesus followers into this mission field, it is so very natural to cry out to God for an end to the suffering. After all, no child should be without family! That is a biblical truth revealed in many passages including Psalm 68:6: “God sets the lonely in families.” Every child deserves and benefits from being set in a family, and it is why we believe passionately in the mission of A Fearless Life.
Even so, the challenge of being orphaned—and a litany of other forms of human suffering—will never end on this side of heaven (Matt. 26:11). God’s plan is to send rather than end. He longs to make His power real in our physical world, which is why He designed you to be capable of channeling it! He has a plan to rush aid and remedy to the wounded and the suffering, and you are that plan!
What a high privilege it is for you and for me to be called to this role. It is not up to us to end suffering, but it is our role to consent to His plan. You and I must be willing to be sentand associated with suffering, and in that sending will be birthed the remedy for it.
At A Fearless Life, we are unapologetically dreaming of and working toward the day when the waiting list of adoption-eligible children will be replaced with a waiting list of families ready to associate with the struggle of being orphaned. Will that day usher in an end to the struggles of being without family? No. But it will be a greater realization of God’s plan to make Himself known to a hurting world through the infilling of His people!
Send is even greater than end! Best of all, send is so very practically possible. Its only requirement is that you step forward with a willing heart.
“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!’” (Is. 6:8).