Saint Patrick

Happy St Paddy's Day! I'm not Irish, but it seemed appropriate to talk about Saint Patrick today. There's a wonderful movie called (no surprise here) St Patrick: The Irish Legend with Patrick Bergin in the title role. I highly recommend everyone watch this film.

Taken to Ireland and sold into slavery as an English abductee in his teens, he cried out to the Lord who he previously spurned. And the Lord answers with encounter far beyond Patrick's wildest imagination. The Lord gave him a mission that was walked out years and years later, that Patrick would save Ireland, at the time a completely pagan nation. And in partnership with the Lord, that is, Patrick boldly stepping out in faith, to the point of several times being killed if God didn't come through, Patrick did.

And it turns out that God's mission for Patrick involved more than just Ireland, but the survival of Christianity in general. While Europe was blunged into the Dark Ages, learning and education and Christianity flourished in Ireland, separated from the darkness of Europe during that time by an ocean. God preserved Christianity itself through Saint Patrick in Ireland, until the time of the reformers who lead Europe out of the Dark.

Saint Patrick was a true man of God. He had intimacy with the Lord first above all things, and out of that relationship, he knew who he really was and what he was for. Saint Patrick's is a wonderful story because the theme is partnership – God not accomplishing what He wanted to do, which He could have done sovereignly at any time, without partnership with Patrick. God did do it sovereignly – through Patrick.

God has a sovereign mission for you just as exciting. Let's not get so caught up in the details of day-to-day living that we neglect intimacy with Him and miss it.