This prayer, attributed to the great explorer Sir Francis Drake, was read during our service Sunday. We would do well to echo these well-formed words of long ago.
Disturb us, Lord, when We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain, Who is Jesus Christ.
Sir Francis Drake -1577
9 comments:
Wonderful!! I'd never heard that before. To think it was written 432 years ago.
Susan
That was good. I think I will have to print it out.
Ok I printed it. Good stuff Kathy.
Thanks Mary Lee! Susan, that was the comment our pastor made. It seemed like something we really needed to think about and adopt for our day and time. I did a little bit of reading about Sir Francis Drake and he was quite a young man, captaining his own ship by the time he was 20. Incredible. I am sure his momma was on her knees for that adventurous young man!
This makes me think of a quote I heard on a garden show recently: "Chaos breeds life...order breeds habit."
My first reaction was NO! But, when you think of nature it is indeed true...the biodiversity required for an exuberant lush garden is quite chaotic. When God put man in the garden...it was not to destroy the diversity but to subdue it and rule over it.
This task to be managed properly would require close contact with our creator God to learn His ways.
"Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars."
Beth Moore's daughter Melissa posted this on her LPM blog this week too. It is definitley a good reminder not to be too complacent in our faith!
Wow! What a great prayer! I have never heard it before. Thank you for posting it.
Wow!!! That got me to thinking about some things in my life.
Nancy, you chose my favorite verse of the prayer.
To everyone: this prayer is challenging to so many of us in so many ways. Interesting that it's come up in a couple of different spots.
Post a Comment