Read at Sunday Night Live in Beijing during the worship service. This poem was written by Francis Drake. He was England's most famous sailor and explorer, he sailed around the world in the ship - 'The Golden Hind' in 1580 and led the outnumbered British Navy to defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588.
This prayer was found in his ship's diary, written on the eve of one of his great adventures:
Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
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 storm 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 us in the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ.
Amen.
