Tag: St Patty’s Day

Questioning God.
Christian. · Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

Questioning God.

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Do people ever ask you questions about God?  Why does God allow things to happen?  Here those on the boat started questioning Patrick.

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And after three days we reached land, and for twenty-eight days journeyed through uninhabited country, and the food ran out and hunger overtook them; and one day the steersman began saying: “Why is it, Christian? You say your God is great and all-powerful; then why can you not pray for us? For we may perish of hunger; it is unlikely indeed that we shall ever see another human being.”

Matthew 17:

20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

And thus, Patrick told them they should trust Jesus and have faith.

 In fact, I said to them, confidently: “Be converted by faith with all your heart to my Lord God, because nothing is impossible for him, so that today he will send food for you on your road, until you be sated, because everywhere he abounds.”
And with God’s help this came to pass; and behold, a herd of swine appeared on the road before our eyes, and they slew many of them, and remained there for two nights, and they were full of their meat and well restored, for many of them had fainted and would otherwise have been left half dead by the wayside.
And after this they gave the utmost thanks to God, and I was esteemed in their eyes, and from that day they had food abundantly. They discovered wild honey, besides, and they offered a share to me, and one of them said: “It is a sacrifice.” Thanks be to God, I tasted none of it.
God Called; Patrick Ran
Christian. · Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

God Called; Patrick Ran

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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.

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night
Christian. · Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night

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And I was not worthy, nor was I such that the Lord should grant his humble servant this, that after hardships and such great trials, after captivity, after many years, he should give me so much favour with these people, a thing which in the time of my youth I neither hoped for nor imagined.

But after I reached Hibernia I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.

Can’t you see our Patrick.  They have captured him and dragged him to land he did not know.  A slave, he is made to watch the sheep.  Away from family, away from the easy life, Patrick prays.  Day and night he talks to God about his issues.  He prays.  The spirit grows inside him.  Patrick prays.

When I look at the lives of the men and women who have served God in mighty ways and  have done hard things for God, I find one common denominator.  They pray.

Jesus prayed.  God, in human form while on earth, prayed.
Luke 5:16 tells us that Jesus frequently withdrew to an isolated place and prayed.

I have been think a lot about prayer.  I think we need to spend quite time talking and listening with God.  But I also think we should be discussing the day to day things with God.  The times I have felt closest to God have been when I ask Him through the day about decision I have to make.  When I discuss my concerns as they arise.  Our prayers like Patricks should be through out our day as we proceed through our lives.

Patrick Can’t Keep Silent
Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

Patrick Can’t Keep Silent

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Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favours and graces has the Lord deigned to bestow on me in the land of my captivity. For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven:

  For there is no other God, nor ever was before, nor shall be hereafter, but God the Father, unbegotten and without beginning, in whom all things began, whose are all things, as we have been taught; and his son Jesus Christ, who manifestly always existed with the Father, before the beginning of time in the spirit with the Father, indescribably begotten before all things, and all things visible and invisible were made by him. He was made man, conquered death and was received into Heaven, to the Father who gave him all power over every name in Heaven and on Earth and in Hell, so that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and God, in whom we believe. And we look to his imminent coming again, the judge of the living and the dead, who will render to each according to his deeds. And he poured out his Holy Spirit on us in abundance, the gift and pledge of immortality, which makes the believers and the obedient into sons of God and co-heirs of Christ who is revealed, and we worship one God in the Trinity of holy name.

Can’t keep silent.  Today we some how believe it is wrong to talk about the acts of God in our lives.  I grew up in a church where on Wednesday nights and some times Sunday nights people stood and told their testimonies.  You don’t hear Christians telling other Christians what God has done in their lives much any more.

The Lord answers prayers in my life.  He rescues me from the jams I get myself into.  He has prepared me before hand for a crisis I will be asked to face.  But the Lord also does sweet miracles (God kisses) that may not seem like big things to others but mean all the world to me.  Over and over God cares for me, but it is seldom I tell people.

Patrick can’t help but tell others about what God has done for him.  He says it is what is owed to God.

For after chastisement from God, and recognizing him, our way to repay him is to exalt him and confess his wonders before every nation under heaven:

Jesus said

Mark 16:15 And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.

Why I am so silent when I should be shouting out everything my Lord has done for me?  Why do I allow our society to coward me into silence?  Why do we not practice sharing what God has done in  our lives with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Patrick continues

He himself said through the prophet: “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me [Psalm 50:15].” And again: “It is right to reveal and publish abroad the works of God.”

 

Opening a Mind
Ireland · Love · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

Opening a Mind

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And there the Lord opened my mind to an awareness of my unbelief, in order that, even so late, I might remember my transgressions and turn with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my insignificance and pitied my youth and ignorance. And he watched over me before I knew him, and before I learned sense or even distinguished between good and evil, and he protected me, and consoled me as a father would his son.

One minute Patrick is walking in a field and the next invaders flood down on him.  They snatch him up with thousands of his friends and family.  Patrick ended up in a part of Ireland as a slave.

The change in his life caused a change in his awareness of God.  So often this happens with nonbelievers and believers alike. Trouble has a way of waking us up to our need for God.

The teen now a slave and alone.  The people captured with him having been dispersed across the lands.  Memories of Sunday services and maybe a grandfather’s sermon reminded him of the Lord who loved him.  Patrick says that in this experience he became aware of his unbelief.

Even as a Christian, I have been drawn back to God and drawn closer to the Lord through rough events.  Some times it is only through trials that we can learn to lean on God.  We learn what it means to actually trust Jesus.  It’s easy to say you believe when you don’t or to act like you trust when you never have.  Times of trouble provide an opportunity for each person to see if their faith is all talk or if it is real.  Looking back on my life almost all my growth in relationship with God has developed in the mist of trouble.

Patrick realized through this experience that he never had a personal faith in Jesus.  You can not become a Christian until you are capable of looking at your past and being honest.  This is where we find Patrick.  He acknowledges he has not been trusting Christ.  He admits his sinful ways.  He turns to God and trusts him for the salvation of his soul.  Jesus becomes Lord of his life.

Patrick as a slave became a slave to Christ.  He no longer was tied to sin but a servant of righteousness.

Roman6:18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

 

Nothing will ever be the same for Patrick.

St. Patrick’s Confession
Ireland · March · March 17 · St. Patrick · St. Patrick's Confession · St. Patty's Day

St. Patrick’s Confession

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Since it is March, I thought it might be fun to parse through the letter written by St. Patrick laying out his life and his relationship with God.

St. Patrick’s Confession

Birth 387 –  Death 17 March (either 460 or 493–some debate)

This Confession was written in response to charges being made against Patrick and his work in Ireland.  They explain how he came to love the Lord and the events of his life as he showed the Lord’s love to the inhabitants of Ireland.