Originally published on March 17 — Saint Patrick’s Day!
Meditate: Acts 2:47
He grew up hearing stories of raiders who destroyed villages and hauled the people away to “the ends of the earth.” When he was 16 it happened to him.
A cruel master put him to work as a shepherd. Alone there with the sheep, he began to pray.
And God heard him. He later wrote, “There the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief that I might at last remember my sins and be converted with all my heart to the Lord my God, who had regard for my abjection, and mercy on my youth and ignorance, and watched over me before I knew Him, and before I was able to distinguish between good and evil, and guarded me, and comforted me as would a father his son.”
After about eight years he escaped, returned home, and entered the ministry.
Years later when he’s in his forties, established and “successful,” God calls him to return to the people who’d enslaved him.
He’s rich but he sells it all, goes back, and over the next 30 years baptizes perhaps 100,000 converts (he lost count), brings human sacrifice to an end in that country, and becomes the first Christian leader to go on record against slavery. (He throws a guy out of the Church for slave-trading.)
By the time of his death he had established over 200 churches and launched a missionary movement that many credit with keeping Christianity alive through the Dark Ages.
In fact, if you trace your Christian roots back through “the people who told the people who told the people who told you” there’s a pretty good chance you’d eventually run into this guy.
So join me in praising God for the heritage of St. Patrick and all the other people God has used to bring us the Good News about the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Who brought the Good News to me?
- Where is God calling me to take the Good News?
Pray:
Praise: You are the Merciful One. You don’t treat us as we deserve.
Confess: I ignore You in good times and cry out when times are bad.
Thank: You did not abandon me in my sins but reached out in Your love.
Ask: Turn me to You with all my heart that I might serve Your people.
Digging Deeper: Isaiah 6:1-8; Romans 10:1-17
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