Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house, and the king will desire your beauty.

   - Psalm 45.10, 11

They offered me many gifts, with tears and lamentation, and I offended them, as well as going against the wish of certain of my seniors, but God guided me not to agree with them or consent to them. This was no thanks to me; rather it was God who triumphed within me and opposed them all, so that I might come to the Irish heathen to preach the Gospel and suffer the insults of unbelievers.

   - Patrick, Confession, Irish, 5th century

When are we maximally desirable to God? When we have forsaken all, denied all, renounced all, become disentangled from all, and thrown off dependence on all, so that we might be wholly available to God for whatever He wants to do.

Patrick’s parents and pastors opposed his going to Ireland; aren’t we glad he listened to God and not them? The Gospel and the souls of lost Irish men and women were more precious to Patrick than the comforts of home and family and the approval of his “seniors.”

He resolved to follow what he knew to be God’s call, even if it meant suffering and insult and hardship (which it did).

I’m sometimes asked why I find the period of Celtic Christianity so interesting or fascinating. I usually say that I find it more instructive and humbling than anything else, and that’s because I need so much instruction and humbling if I am to be a fit vessel for the Lord’s service. Patrick’s courage and sacrifice bring me to tears. And yet he did nothing more than what God requires of all His Church if we would know the fullness of His abundant love and power: leave everything dear to you and cast yourself wholly on the Lord. Then, and only then, will we know just how strong is His desire for us, how intense His love, how transforming His grace, how surprising His power.

Today, dear friend, would you be desirable to God?

Let go, let go – and flee to Him.

Psalm 45.10-12 (Manoah: “When All Your Mercies, O My God”)
Let none keep us from hearing You; desire our beauty, Lord!
We bow, submitting humbly to Your ever-faithful Word.

Lord, let love for You be the only real and lasting love of my heart. Adapted from The Rule of Carthage