Disturbing Life

I have heard it said that the words of the bible are to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.”  In other words, not only are the sacred texts to be balm for our woundedness, but they can also be words that make us uncomfortable.  They move us.  They shake us up a bit.  They call us to be more fully alive.  Sometimes our lives can become like sediment that sits on the bottom, lifeless and not moving.  We need something to shake us up, wake us up, move us around and infuse us with some vitality!  My hope is that this Lenten journey is exactly that force that stirs up something in us, something that makes us a little more alive!

            I offer the prayer of Sir Francis Drake as something to ponder this day as we consider where our lives are at this time and what we need to move more purposefully into a deeper life:

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.

May our lives be disturbed today in ways that move us towards greater life!