by Kate
For many years, I have turned to this prayer when I felt I was letting life pass me by. When my creativity and thoughtfulness and strength were dampened by the relentless slog of the everyday. It’s a prayer that startles me out of my complacency, and shocks me into lifting my eyes from my own plodding feet to the wild and breath-taking point of view of God.
This prayer is often attributed to Sir Francis Drake, the explorer, but it is likely from a much more recent source. Either way, as I work my way through the many questions of how to truly spend my values I yet again make this provoking and radically challenging prayer my own.
Disturb us, O Lord,
When we are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O 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, O 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
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.