Prayer Changes Things

A voice said to him ‘Elijah, what are you doing here? .. Return to the desert near Damascus, then enter the city… 1 Kings 19: 13, 15

One night in my sleep I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Fast well, for soon you will be back to your own country.’ And in a little while the same voice said to me, ‘See, your ship is ready.’ But it wasn’t close by, it was perhaps two hundred miles away, at a place I had never been to, nor did I know a single person there. But I made up my mind to run away, and so I left the man with whom I had spent the last six years. I went in the strength of the Lord who guided me well, and I feared nothing up to the time I came to that ship.

On the day I arrived, the ship was scheduled to depart, and I told them I had the wherewithal to sail with them. But the ship’s captain was displeased, and his answer was sharp and indignant: ‘You are wasting your time trying to book a passage with us’. When I heard this I left them to return to the little shack where I was staying. On the way I began to pray, and before I had finished praying I heard one of the sailors shouting at me from behind. ‘Come quickly,’ he called out, ‘the men are asking for you’. Immediately I reversed my direction and headed back. ‘We are taking you on faith’, the crew explained. ‘Make friends with us in any way you like.’ But I did not become intimate with them through fear of God; and yet I hoped that an opportunity would open up when I could say to them, ‘Come to faith in Jesus Christ,’ for they were pagans. So I came aboard and we sailed immediately.
The Confession of Patrick

This day I call to me
God’s strength to direct me
God’s power to sustain me
God’s wisdom to guide me
God’s vision to light me
God’s ear to my hearing
God’s word to my speaking
God’s hand to uphold me
God’s pathway before me
God’s shield to protect me
St. Patrick’s Breastplate