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Crosfigell

Send the Light

Be the light. Send the light.

He was learning's pillar in every stronghold,/he was foremost at the book of complex Law./The northern land shone,/the western people blazed,/he lit up the east/with chaste clerics.

  - Dallan Forgaill, Amra Choluimb Chille (Irish, 6th century)

...and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.

  - 2 Timothy 2.2

Colum Cille (fl. mid-6th century) gave the first impetus to Irish missions, in the second generation after Patrick. He was among the first wave of missionary/scholars to go abroad from Ireland, and he established a training school on Iona. From there missionaries were trained and sent to all points on the compass, bringing the light of the Gospel wherever they went.

I love that phrasing by Dallan: "he lit up the east..." So effective was Colum Cille as a teacher, pastor, and example of evangelism and disciple-making, that those he sent out imitated what they learned from him, multiplying disciples and missionaries wherever they went. Colum truly sent out the light from Iona, and the dying churches, corrupt courts, and lost pagans of Europe reaped the benefits for hundreds of years to come.

Will it be said of us that we light up even our own Personal Mission Field? Are we daily engaged in shining the light of truth by our lives, blazing new trails for the Gospel, and bearing witness to the Light of the world by our words? Colum was intentional about his task: He prepared well, prayed fervently, trained men for disciplined lives, and sent them out to follow the example of witness and disciple-making he had set for them.

They changed the world. Column, Dallan continues, "was a terror to the devil."

Are we a terror to the devil? Are we sending the light of truth into the lives of those around us? If we answer "No," or if we don't know how to answer, then clearly we have some work to do.

The place to begin is by mapping out your Personal Mission Field and committing yourself to pray daily for the people God has put in your life. Get to know them. Look for ways to serve them. Show them the joy, peace, and goodness of Jesus. And be alert for every door of opportunity that cracks open before you.

If we won't take up this mandate to bring the light, we'll certainly never be able to encourage anyone else to do so. And where will that leave the light - and the world - in the next generation?

Not some place you or I would want to be.

"You are the light of the world," Jesus says. Well, is Jesus wrong?

Or are we just unwilling to fulfill His expectations?

Our world needs the Gospel more than ever before. And we are the only light it gets.

Be the light. Send the light.

T. M. Moore, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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