Going Beyond “Woe is Me” Worship

Not too long ago, I heard a story about a boy who was around ten years old. One day, he got so mad at his mom that, in the heat of the moment, he said some pretty harsh words. But he had been raised better than that, so it didn’t take long for him to settle down and realize the error of his ways. Part of his punishment was to sit down and write out an apology. (The pain of an apology can sometimes hurt worse than a whipping!) In his apology, he wrote, “I am dumb. I am stupid. I hate the Devil. I want God and Jesus.” Even at ten years old, he recognized his own heart’s tendency to hurt the people around him. But once he became aware of what he had done wrong, he knew what it would take to make it right. The only remedy at that moment was for the boy to be reminded of his mother’s love, and what began as a correction from his mother quickly turned to compassion––not despite what he had done but precisely in light of it.

It’s hard for us to imagine how God is capable of love, justice, mercy, wrath, grace, power, omniscience, and omnipotence all at once, but none of God’s attributes cancel out the others or make him any less than who He is. Isaiah’s experience in chapter six paints the picture for us of what it looks like to recognize our inadequacy yet receive God’s grace to get going again in a better direction. I can only imagine what it was like for Isaiah to see the Lord on his throne in the Temple. The seraphim cried out, “Holy, holy, holy” again and again. As Isaiah watched the worship around the throne of God, he became deeply and painfully aware of his sin. He was so overcome by the chasm of sin and depravity that separated him from a holy God that the only response he could give was, “Woe is me.” 

The “woe is me” response is a moment that causes us to realize how far we are from God and reminds us of His infinitude and our fallen condition. The “woe is me” moment recognizes the weight of God’s glory and holiness. It sees humankind as being incredibly inferior to the majesty and might of the awesome and almighty God. Certain theological streams are content to stay in what I call the “woe is me” mindset. They do not try to excuse sin, but they focus on it so much that it becomes the end-all-be-all of their worship, preaching, and teaching. They become almost exclusively focused on the depravity of humankind in the name of God’s holiness that they miss other aspects of God’s character revealed in Scripture. God’s holiness is not threatened or augmented by our depravity because He is God all by himself! He does not need the contrast of human sin to accentuate his holiness.

We all need a “woe is me” moment, yet we cannot stop there or stay in that moment. We all need to see God seated high upon His throne and acknowledge as Isaiah did, “Woe is me.” But as soon as Isaiah says, “Woe is me,” the seraph takes the coal from the altar and cleanses Isaiah’s lips to speak the word of the Lord. This is what God does for all of us who make the profession, “Woe is me!” He makes us useful to declare His words. There is a danger when we stop at “Woe is me” because it causes our act of worship to become me-centered, yet God wants to move us to “Here I am, send me,” and we cannot say, “Here I am,” unless we have said, “Woe is me.” God wants to use us and many of us want to be used by God, but some want to skip from seeing God on the throne to saying, “Here I am,” without going through “Woe is me.” But others stop at “Woe is me” and never say “Here I am.” When we say, “Woe is me,” God cleanses us to make us fit for His use. This is a second crucial moment for every Christian.

Once we say, “Woe is me,” God can make us useful, and then we can boldly respond to the Gospel call with, “Here am I. Send me!” When God spoke to Abraham in Genesis 22, Abraham responded, “Here I am.” When He called Moses in Exodus 3, Moses said, “Here I am.” When He called the young Samuel in 1 Samuel 3, the boy responded, “Here I am.” Isaiah followed this pattern of obedient response to the call. Now, what we should notice here is that responding with “Here I am. Send me!” is not a mere moment. It is a daily reality. We can and should look back on the moment when we acknowledged and repented from our sin and said, “Woe is me,” but we cannot and should not stay there. We can look back on the moment when we were cleansed with the coal from the altar, but we must not stay sinful and unclean. Those moments happen so that we can live in the daily reality of being sent out into the world as our act of worship (Rom. 12:1). It is an act of daily obedience to say, “Here am I. Send me!” Like the young boy who wrote down in his apology letter, “I want God and Jesus!” we all find the same response from the Lord. When we come to Him to acknowledge and repent of our sins, He does not turn us away. He embraces us with great love; His love is an expression of His holiness, and He thereby makes us whole; and then, because His love casts out fear, and as an ultimate act of worship, we can respond with confidence to His call, “Here I am. Send me!”