God’s calling – Fourth Day Adventures

Patrick loved the people of Ireland more than he loved his own life. He had a passion to witness to them for all of his life even if it resulted in his losing his life.
I suspect there is a mission field for every Christian. There are people who God places on our heart. We can choose to live to love those people, sharing Christ with them. Or we can busy ourselves with work, and pleasure making room for those God has given us only when it is convenient.

. But what should I say, or what should I promise to my Lord, for I, alone, can do nothing unless he himself vouchsafe it to me.

But let him search my heart and nature, for I crave enough for it, even too much, and I am ready for him to grant me that I drink of his chalice, as he has granted to others who love him.  Therefore may it never befall me to be separated by my God from his people whom he has won in this most remote land.

I pray God that he gives me perseverance, and that he will deign that I should be a faithful witness for his sake right up to the time of my passing.  And if at any time I managed anything of good for the sake of my God whom I love, I beg of him that he grant it to me to shed my blood for his name with proselytes and captives, even should I be left unburied, or even were my wretched body to be torn limb from limb by dogs or savage beasts, or were it to be devoured by the birds of the air, I think, most surely, were this to have happened to me, I had saved both my soul and my body.

For beyond any doubt on that day we shall rise again in the brightness of the sun, that is, in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as children of the living God and co-heirs of Christ, made in his image; for we shall reign through him and for him and in him.  For the sun we see rises each day for us at [his] command, but it will never reign, neither will its splendor last, but all who worship it will come wretchedly to punishment. We, on the other hand, shall not die, who believe in and worship the true sun, Christ, who will never die, no more shall he die who has done Christ’s will, but will abide for ever just as Christ abides for ever, who reigns with God the Father Almighty and with the Holy Spirit before the beginning of time and now and for ever and ever. Amen.

And it was there of course that one night in my sleep I heard a voice saying to me: “You do well to fast: soon you will depart for your home country.”

Do you ever fast? The one thing you don’t see in Patrick’s list of things he was doing was fasting. He doesn’t make a big deal about it. He mentions over and over how he is praying to God.
But when God speaks to Patrick, His first words commend Patrick for fasting because he is about to face something new.

A few years back someone introduced me to the idea that you can fast in many ways. Limiting food and concentrating on God is one way. Some times it makes sense to fast those things in your life that take your focus off of God–TV, internet, social media. Our Lord fasted for 40 days (Luke 4:1-4). During this time, he prayed alone and prepared his spirit for the temptation which he would face.

Back to Patrick.

And again, a very short time later, there was a voice prophesying: “Behold, your ship is ready.” And it was not close by, but, as it happened, two hundred miles away, where I had never been nor knew any person.

And shortly thereafter I turned about and fled from the man with whom I had been for six years, and I came, by the power of God who directed my route to advantage (and I was afraid of nothing), until I reached that ship.

And on the same day that I arrived, the ship was setting out from the place, and I said that I had not the wherewithal to sail with them; and the steersman was displeased and replied in anger, sharply: “By no means attempt to go with us.”

God called Patrick and he obeyed. He ran and followed a path he did not know, towards a destination just as unknown. He trusted God and there it was the ship that would take him away from the land of his slavery. Do you think he doubted or trusted his calling when the man said Patrick could not sail with them? Do you think Patrick question if he really heard God’s call now that the plan was not working out?

How often we think because we hit an obstacle that we must have miss understood God’s calling for our life.

Tag: God’s calling

Faithful Witness

God Called; Patrick Ran