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Transition: A Fresh Breaking

“‘Woe is 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.'” (Isaiah 6:5NIV)

"In the year that King Uzziah died," in a time of change and uncertainty, Isaiah gets this fantastic view of God. So great is the glory of God that even the seraphim have to cover themselves, though they've never sinned. God is so holy and pure that the experience is overwhelming for Isaiah. How do you think he responded? Did he shout, "Hallelujah"? Did he join the angels in calling out, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty"? He went down into the dust and cried out, "Woe is me!" When we experience God more profoundly, we are all made to humble ourselves in his holy presence. For God to use a man or a woman, they have to be broken, and the best breakings are those that come, not from the disappointments of life, but when we see God for who he is. That happens only in his presence.

We can't effectively minister to sinful people unless we see ourselves helpless without God. The truth is that without fresh experiences with God, we naturally get self-righteous and judgmental, and we look down on people. But when we encounter the Lord, we become more tender with others. Some people may seem like a thorn in the flesh, but soon you'll pray for them. They won't seem repugnant anymore because you've seen yourself for who you are in God's presence.

So there's this revelation of who God is, and there's the accompanying, "Woe is me!" on the part of Isaiah. And he was a prophet, and this wasn't the first day he had an encounter with God! But even a prophet sees things differently in the light of God's presence. The same goes for us. We'll no longer be looking at the speck in other people's eyes, but we'll try to get the two-by-four out of our eye!