Disturb us, Lord

There are a lot of things that inspire me, but as someone who loves the way words can shape and encourage, I love poetry.
This is a poem written by Sir Francis Drake.  A famous explorer and pirate, Drake circumnavigated the world in the mid-1500s and, while he was not exactly an upright citizen, he wrote a phenomenal poem that I have been musing over for a while. 

It is easy to be happy with comfort, and there is nothing wrong with that.  Unless, of course, we lose sight of His goal for our life.  And, so often, I know that I lose sight of that goal.  

So, here’s to being disturbed.  
To listening and focusing on the things that matter.

“Disturb us, 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, 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
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.”