Many years ago a teenage boy was abducted from his Christian home and taken to a foreign country where he was forced into slavery. For six years, he prayed constantly amid great torment and loneliness. He came to identify with Christ in suffering, and learned what it really meant to trust God no matter what. One night during a time of prayer and fasting he heard a voice telling him it was time to be free. He escaped and found passage home to his family where he began to study for ministry.
One night he had a dream in which a man, from the land of his captivity, came to him and begged him to return. Despite understandable misgivings and internal struggle, the now young man sought God for guidance. Through another dream, he became convinced that it was indeed God’s will for him to return to the land of his slavery. It was a place of great darkness full of gang violence, internal conflict, witchcraft, pluralism, superstition, injustice and death.
Over a 29 year period, this man of great faith, trusted an inner voice from God that warned him of dangers in his travels and helped him know where to go. He preached the good news of Jesus Christ, baptizing over 120,000 and planting 300 churches.
Legend tells us that he ran all the snakes out of the country, but those snakes were not the ones that slither on the ground, rather they were of the more demonic origin. This former slave made a huge difference in the land of his captivity and is now remembered around the world for the great work he did there. We call him St. Patrick.
Shalom!
(Original post March 17, 2014)