The Luck of the Irish
Psalms 107:6
"Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses."
Do you believe in luck? I really don't. I think a good definition of "luck" is when "preparation meets opportunity." What looks like luck, a happy happenstance or an arbitrary tragedy, is often a fairly discernible process. Yet, we can go too far with this.
Clearly there are circumstances that happen to us, either blessing or disasters, out of our control. St. Patrick, before he was a saint, was a dissolute youth, given to impiety. He truly was in the "wrong place at the wrong time" like a bowling pin when he was abducted by a marauding Irish troupe on the shores of France and taken to Ireland as a slave. I am not sure what is up with the bowling analogy but I am going to roll with it. What looks to man like a misfortune does not wind up being so in the grip of God.
Read this from his Confession:
"I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a presbyter, of the settlement of Bannaven Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.
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.
Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favors 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."
To complete the roll, Patrick went from being a victimized pin in game 1 in Ireland to a victorious ball in game 2 in Ireland several years later when He returned to the Emerald Isle at the command of God. God used his time in Ireland in the first round to strike at his defiant pin of sinfulness. Then, Patrick returned and became a blessing ball. In the words of Mark Batterson, here is what happened: "Saint Patrick went back to Ireland as a missionary. No outside religion had penetrated Ireland in a thousand years. Saint Patrick founded more than 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 people. His ministry was so influential that he came to be known as the one who "found Ireland all heathen and left it all Christian."
When we read Psalm 107, the refrain "Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses" appears four times. Since the Psalms are songs, this is the chorus. We need to cry out to God in our trouble, a noxious pit of our own sinfulness and the general sinfulness of the world, and He promises to hear us and deliver us. The remarkable thing is that it is often these strikes of chastisement that bring us to Him and then prepare us for ministry to others who are in need of redemption.
As Charles Spurgeon wrote, "Necessity is often the mother of prayer, and prayer is the forerunner of deliverance. Our soul may faint, but so long as we can pray we shall not perish." Just like St. Patrick.
"Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses."
Do you believe in luck? I really don't. I think a good definition of "luck" is when "preparation meets opportunity." What looks like luck, a happy happenstance or an arbitrary tragedy, is often a fairly discernible process. Yet, we can go too far with this.
Clearly there are circumstances that happen to us, either blessing or disasters, out of our control. St. Patrick, before he was a saint, was a dissolute youth, given to impiety. He truly was in the "wrong place at the wrong time" like a bowling pin when he was abducted by a marauding Irish troupe on the shores of France and taken to Ireland as a slave. I am not sure what is up with the bowling analogy but I am going to roll with it. What looks to man like a misfortune does not wind up being so in the grip of God.
Read this from his Confession:
"I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a presbyter, of the settlement of Bannaven Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our deserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.
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.
Therefore, indeed, I cannot keep silent, nor would it be proper, so many favors 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."
To complete the roll, Patrick went from being a victimized pin in game 1 in Ireland to a victorious ball in game 2 in Ireland several years later when He returned to the Emerald Isle at the command of God. God used his time in Ireland in the first round to strike at his defiant pin of sinfulness. Then, Patrick returned and became a blessing ball. In the words of Mark Batterson, here is what happened: "Saint Patrick went back to Ireland as a missionary. No outside religion had penetrated Ireland in a thousand years. Saint Patrick founded more than 300 churches and baptized more than 120,000 people. His ministry was so influential that he came to be known as the one who "found Ireland all heathen and left it all Christian."
When we read Psalm 107, the refrain "Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses" appears four times. Since the Psalms are songs, this is the chorus. We need to cry out to God in our trouble, a noxious pit of our own sinfulness and the general sinfulness of the world, and He promises to hear us and deliver us. The remarkable thing is that it is often these strikes of chastisement that bring us to Him and then prepare us for ministry to others who are in need of redemption.
As Charles Spurgeon wrote, "Necessity is often the mother of prayer, and prayer is the forerunner of deliverance. Our soul may faint, but so long as we can pray we shall not perish." Just like St. Patrick.
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