Sir Francis Drake (~1577)
"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 wider 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 into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love".
How often do we sincerely cry out to God and ask him "disturb" us? This year God has really been showing me how much I value my comfort. He's also showing me that my comfort is something that doesn't matter to him! As Christ followers in America I think that can be a difficult thing to grasp...at least for some of us.
It's one thing to say that "God wants us to get out of our comfort zone" That can simply mean that from time to time we step out of our comfortable lifestyle for a moment and then retreat quickly back to safety and feel good about stretching our faith. Isn't it entirely different though, if we conclude that our comfort is simply irrelevant to God? That could mean that he could call us to a lifestyle that involves heartbreak, pain, and uncertainty. It could mean that our lives could get very messy as we reach out to desperate people with desperate needs. It could mean that ministries that we previously thought were only for "special" people with a "special calling" now may have our name on it.
Disturb us, Lord, out of our half dead, comfortable existance. Give us the grace to take hold of the life abundant that you offer to us.
