Allowing your most trying moments to Glorify God
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When you feel exhausted look to God for what he had planned in your life
When you feel exhausted look to God for what he had planned in your life
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.
A son once asked why don't you ever iron a 4 leaf clover?
The father replied because you might press your luck
Everyone has heard about Saint Patrick — The holiday where millions around the world don their green attire grab their green beer hit the party scene like so many other great holidays this day too has been stolen by Satan. On he wasn’t even Irish.
Everyone has heard about Saint Patrick — The holiday where millions around the world don their green attire grab their green beer hit the party scene like so many other great holidays this day too has been stolen by Satan. On he wasn’t even Irish.
What we know of Patrick’s life comes only through the chance survival of two remarkable letters which he wrote in Latin in his old age. In them, Patrick tells the story of his tumultuous life and allows us to look intimately inside the mind and soul of a man who lived over fifteen hundred years ago. We may know more biographical details about Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great, but nothing else from ancient times opens the door into the heart of a man more than Patrick’s letters. They tell the story of an amazing life of pain and suffering, self-doubt and struggle, but ultimately of faith and hope in a world which was falling apart around him.
��Saint Patrick stained glass window from Cathedral of Christ the Light, Oakland, CA. Photo by Simon Carrasco. CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
The historical Patrick was not Irish at all, but a spoiled and rebellious young Roman citizen living a life of luxury in fifth-century Britain when he was suddenly kidnapped from his family’s estate as a teenager and sold into slavery across the sea in Ireland. For six years he endured brutal conditions as he watched over his master’s sheep on a lonely mountain in a strange land. He went to Ireland an atheist, but there heard what he believed was the voice of God. One day he escaped and risked his life to make a perilous journey across Ireland, finding passage back to Britain on a ship of reluctant pirates. His family welcomed back their long-lost son and assumed he would take up his life of privilege, but Patrick heard a different call. He returned to Ireland to bring a new way of life to a people who had once enslaved him. He constantly faced opposition, threats of violence, kidnapping, and even criticism from jealous church officials, while his Irish followers faced abuse, murder, and enslavement themselves by mercenary raiders. But through all the difficulties Patrick maintained his faith and persevered in his Irish mission.
The Ireland that Patrick lived and worked in was utterly unlike the Roman province of Britain in which he was born and raised. Dozens of petty Irish kings ruled the countryside with the help of head-hunting warriors while Druids guided their followers in a religion filled with countless gods and perhaps an occasional human sacrifice. Irish women were nothing like those Patrick knew at home. Early Ireland was not a world of perfect equality by any means, but an Irish wife could at least control her own property and divorce her husband for any number of reasons, including if he became too fat for sexual intercourse. But Irish women who were slaves faced a cruel life. Again and again in his letters, Patrick writes of his concern for the many enslaved women of Ireland who faced beatings and abuse on a daily basis.
Patrick wasn’t the first Christian to reach Ireland; he wasn’t even the first bishop. What made Patrick successful was his dogged determination and the courage to face whatever dangers lay ahead, as well as the compassion and forgiveness to work among a people who had brought nothing but pain to his life. None of this came naturally to him, however. He was a man of great insecurities who constantly wondered if he was really cut out for the task he had been given. He had missed years of education while he was enslaved in Ireland and carried a tremendous chip on his shoulder when anyone sneered, as they frequently did, at his simple, schoolboy Latin. He was also given to fits of depression, self-pity, and violent anger. Patrick was not a storybook saint, meek and mild, who wandered Ireland with a beatific smile and a life free from petty faults. He was very much a human being who constantly made mistakes and frequently failed to live up to his own Christian ideals, but he was honest enough to recognize his shortcomings and never allow defeat to rule his life.
You don’t have to be Irish to admire Patrick. His is a story of inspiration for anyone struggling through hard times public or private in a world with unknown terrors lurking around the corner. So raise a glass to the patron saint of Ireland, but remember the man behind the myth.
God places us in situations in circumstances on places so that we might serve Him and His Will
11 You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
23 The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord,
And He delights in his way.
psalm
2. God speaks to us when we are all alone with Him in prayer.
27 My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.
21 Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,
“This is the way, walk in it,”
Whenever you turn to the right hand
Or whenever you turn to the left.
3 ‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’
Jer
Jesus solitude is how He demonstrated a deeper love/relationship with the Father whom he called Abba this was to be a example for each of us to follow
35 Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.
Mark
23 Now it happened that He went through the grainfields on the Sabbath; and as they went His disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.
12 Now it came to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. 13 And when it was day, He called His disciples to Himself; and from them He chose twelve whom He also named apostles:
Mark
13 And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him.
My time hunting (example)
3. God doesn't call the qualified he qualifies the called.
Abraham was inpatient and failed to wait on Gods timing, Jacob was a thief who stole his brothers birth right, Moses was insecure, Davis the man after Gods Heart was a cheater liar adultery and a murder, Peter was a man filled with angry outbursts and at times would deny Christ and the true Gospel, Paul was a chief amongst sinners a persecutor of Christians
3 “The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make His paths straight.’ ”
mark
The Men Who God called were not the qualified, However God qualified them through His call and there obedience to surrender to that call
Patrick was not a St. as they would have you believe he struggled with great insecurities and deep periods of depression but through it he sought the strength of God through intense prayer to give him the ability to continue to serve Christ with all of his might.
What will you do?
Will you listen all alone with God?
Will you stand against your sin your insecurities tell the enemy you are a liar God can use me and I will obey Him?
6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.