Disturb Us ...

There are times when you hear something that is not necessarily directed just at you, it's shared with a wide audience and you happen to be a part of that audience, but it feels like it was spoken at just the right time and place so that you would hear it.

As I sat, listening to the below prayer by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, specifically the part about our dreams coming true because we dreamed too little or sailed too close the shore, I felt the message settling in.

It isn't that I've dreamed too little ... my dreams are pretty big.

It's that I need to take a different path to get to them, and I keep talking myself out of it ... convincing myself I'll likely fail or the potential financial impact will be too great or I won't have the time I need to make it work. The reasons rotate based on the day ... maybe even the hour. Regardless, they are the wrong reasons to keep close to shore where I feel safe.

It's exactly what I needed to hear.

I think ... :-)

Disturb Us, O Lord

(This prayer is attributed to Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu adapted from an original prayer by Sir Francis Drake)

Disturb us, O 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, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life when,
having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly,
to venture into wider seas where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
Amen