Sir Francis Drake's Prayer

18Jul08

I love this challenging prayer, a call to the adventurous...

Francis Drake was England's most famous sailor and explorer, he sailed around the world in '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:

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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

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Wow, that is an amazing prayer, I shall print it and put it on the fridge!

Mark Robins

19Jul08

The fridge, of course, being the place of highest honour for words of wisdom...

Mark Robins

19Jul08

Al is this the one that was shared at Staff Meeting? Sounds familiar and I did like that one and this one. Now the challenge is to make it into a song. A prize for the winner!

Jords

19Jul08

very thought provokin, i like, good prayer and good teaching in the prayer

Andy Rhodes

20Jul08

Francis Drake would be pleased to know that his famous prayer has made it to the immortal Robins family fridge, alongside the milk and fruit corners.

Al

21Jul08

Francis Drake would be pleased to know that his famous prayer has made it to the immortal Robins family fridge, alongside the milk and fruit corners.

Al

21Jul08

At least when you raid the fridge late at night for some munchies, you might be inspired to pray :o)

This sounds like it was written yesterday - amazing insight into an explorer's heart, all of us on "the search" can identify with parts of that.

John 3.16 --> 1 Jn 3.16 This is love.

larry

25Jul08

That is an amazing prayer that is still fresh and relevant.

A friend of mine gave me this quote from William Booth which is of a similar ilk:

"The principal danger of the 20th Century will be:

1) A religion without the Holy Spirit

2) Christians without Christ

3) Forgiveness without repentance

4) Salvation without regeneration

5) politics without God

6) A Heaven without a Hell "

Though provoking indeed.