Am I Disturbed?

You know it's going to be a good story when it begins with a legal pirate.

 Sixteenth century English sea captain and privateer, Sir Francis Drake, had some pretty good kick-you-in-the-pants zingers. His prayer recorded in 1577 resonates with me in an elephantine way:

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.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,

Who is Jesus Christ.

~Sir Francis Drake~

In the throes of life, sometimes it's all too tempting to hang the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door and remind God that I have enough on my plate. I can hide behind the excuse that my family is my ministry during this stage of life. We can all huddle behind our door, with our pretty "go away" sign and I can teach my kids how to love others.* Safely. From a distance. Maybe just let them know I texted someone a "thinking of you" message. I'm sure that's the stuff of Kingdom work. Stuff that will surely set the world ablaze.**

We can be safe or we can be strong, but rarely can we be both.


Needing To Be More Disturbed,

Cynthia

*Confession: We have a welcome mat at the front door that says "leave". Did you honestly expect something else coming from me?!?
**If the new definition of "ablaze" indicates something about lighting fires with a wet sponge.