Christopher Columbus = Christ Bearer

If you are a Christian you have something in common with the man whose accomplishements we celebrate today.

His name means Christ Bearer

Happy Columbus Day!

So often, when God says, “Move,” we ask, “Why?”

I cannot imagine being an explorer, going places where no one has ever gone, risking my life, leaving behind loved ones, having no idea what I might face, where my next meal would be found, how I would find a doctor if there were no Emergency Rooms… on and on I go. Oh, and by the way, these are very real thoughts I have each time I face a move.

Yet Christopher Columbus took the challenge and set sail leaving all comforts behind.

We learn from our earliest elementary school days about Christopher Columbus. We are told many stories surrounding his goals, purpose, preparations.

I wanted to hear from the horses mouth.
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Why did he do it?

It didn’t take me long to find excerpts from his journal. You can read them for yourself. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/Columbus1.html

I cut through all the formal language and satisfied my curiosity. It appears Christopher went to Sunday School and learned the great commission. Well maybe not, but he certainly understood that God had a calling on his life. Read what he wrote:

IN THE NAME OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
Whereas, Most Christian, High, Excellent, and Powerful Princes, King and Queen of Spain and of the Islands of the Sea, our Sovereigns, this present year 1492… I had given your Highnesses respecting the countries of India and of a Prince, called Great Can, which in our language signifies King of Kings, how, at many times he, and his predecessors had sent to Rome soliciting instructors who might teach him our holy faith, and the holy Father had never granted his request, whereby great numbers of people were lost, believing in idolatry and doctrines of perdition. Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians, and princes who love and promote the holy Christian faith…, determined to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the above-mentioned countries of India, to see the said princes, people, and territories, and to learn their disposition and the proper method of converting them to our holy faith; and furthermore directed that I should not proceed by land to the East, as is customary, but by a Westerly route, in which direction we have hitherto no certain evidence that any one has gone. So … your Highnesses, in the same month of January, ordered me to proceed…

WOW! He wanted to share the gospel!

Further research brought me to this site:
http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/columbus.html

Without a doubt, the Bible was a great source of inspiration to Columbus. He drew heavily from it and took his name, “Christ Bearer," seriously, believing, in fact, that he had a divine mission to accomplish.

http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/columbus.html

With so many distractions today, Monday, October 13, 2008 – political doubt, nations at war, chaotic economy, uncertain future, one thing hasn’t changed.

God has a message for every person in the world –

“whoever believes in GOD will have everlasting life!”

How will the whoevers hear unless believers are willing to move into their hearts and “determine the proper method for converting them to our holy faith”?

Right now, let’s determine to be inspired by today’s man of the hour.

Move beyond your world. Be a Christ Bearer to those across the across the hall, or across town…