"Whom shall I send, & who will go for us"...to AU?

At National Staff Conference

The new semester has just started on top gear.  The last month has already been filled to the brim for me with meeting new students, planning our first outreach events, starting small group Bible studies, traveling to St. Lois for Nation Staff Conference, heading to Indiana to continue my second year of staff training, & somewhere in the midst of that fitting in the rest of my life. The last few weeks have been a constant go, go, go.

In St. Lois for National Staff Conference

Taking time to slow down in the busyness is vital to hearing God amidst all the noise around us.  That is what happened one day as I was slowing down to do my devotions.  That morning the section I read was based from the Isaiah 6 passage where he is in the throne room of God.  There is so much going on around Isaiah; angels are singing of God's holiness, the overwhelming presence of God, and even Isaiah's own realization of his sinfulness. It is such a wonderful and busy picture, yet in the midst of all that Isaiah is able to slow down and hear God, "And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, 'Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?' Then I said, 'Here I am! Send me.'" (6:8)  Because Isaiah slowed down enough to hear the call, he was able to respond and say "Yes God!" He didn't know where he was going at that point but he faithfully said yes to going where ever God sent him.

IV students at our Celebration Dinner back in December.
These students have said yes to God's invitation to be His
ambassadors at AU.

After reading that it really struck me, God is saying the same thing right now.  He is saying the same thing to me and to my students.  "Who will go for us to AU?"  When we said yes to coming to AU, we said yes to God's invitation to be His ambassadors for His Kingdom right here at AU.  God has invited us into His work at AU, to see students & faculty transformed, the campus renewed, & world changers developed.  So now what? We said yes, so what do we do to see that happen?  We invite people to get to know Jesus, that is where transformation happens.  So we lead Bible studies on campus, we pray for our campus, we provide a space for students to hear Truth on our campus, but above all we invite others to make the decision to follow Jesus.  So as we do all of our regular things with IV we can never forget that we are really inviting people to get to know Jesus and serve Him as He has invited us to. It is a great thing that we have been given, a relationship with God.  We need to invite others to get to know Him so they can receive it as well. 

Please pray for us this semester to be inviting people to get to know who Jesus is through the different Bible studies, prayer meeting, and larger group activities we do.