From one of my favorite new blogs, Swerve, Craig Groeschel, senior pastor of LifeChurch.tv, mentions a prayer of Sir Francis Drake from 1577:
“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.â€
Erin mentions this Fransiscan blessing in a comment on this same post:
May God bless you with discomfort
at easy answers
half truths
and superficial relationships
so that you may live deep within your heart.May God bless you with anger
at injustice,
oppression,
and exploitation of people,
so that you may wish for justice, freedom, and peace.May God bless you with enough foolishness
to believe that you can make a difference in this world
so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.
I’m pushing out farther, and praying for God to bless me with enough foolishness to believe that I can make a difference in this world.
Are you?