5 Lessons We Can Learn from St. Patrick about Spiritual Warfare
by Faith McDonnell, Gafcon:
For today’s devotions, coming on the day we celebrate Patrick, Bishop and Apostle to the Irish (461 AD), it may look as if I’m taking a detour from talking about the Suffering Church – but not really. We, as advocates for our persecuted brothers and sisters, can learn much from Bishop Patrick about spiritual warfare against “the cosmic powers over this present darkness,” and “against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Maybe these lessons can aid us in the global battle with the Coronavirus, as well.
You may know of Patrick’s true story from his own powerful autobiography, his Confession. He tells how his conversion and relationship with Christ began. He was born in Britain, probably Scotland, around 385 AD, to Roman British parents. As a teenager, he was kidnapped by wild Irish ruffians and brought as a slave to (Northern) Ireland. He says:
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.
God in a vision showed Patrick how to escape, and he returned to Britain and his parents. In The Confession he says his family welcomed him back and pleaded with him not to go away from them again. But in another vision, Patrick saw a man “whose name was Victoricus” who came from Ireland with letters for Patrick. He then heard the voice of the Irish saying, “We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us.”
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