A couple of days ago I was asked to give a brief presentation on my plans for Africa at my church's night of missions celebration. There had been quite a few people in the church who had gone on mission trips recently and the church took an evening to celebrate and highlight those. I was asked then to speak on my plans for Africa. I'll admit I felt a little out of place as the trip is still a year away and I honestly felt like I didn't have much to say other than "I want to go." But I got up there and talked a little bit about my dreams for Africa for the last several years and some of the practical steps I'm needing to take to get there. What I was blessed by more than anything though was what someone else said last night. A woman in our church who works in Deaf ministry had recently gone to Honduras to work with New Life Deaf Ministry, an awesome ministry that is working diligently to serve the Lord and the Deaf community in Honduras. She read this poem below and it just struck my heart in such a profound way:
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 arrive safely because we have 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 wider 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 us into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love.
Yes Lord, let it be so.
Confront us with our complacency and fill us with a Holy Hunger that is insatiable.
Instill within us a Divine Desperation to see Your Kingdom come and to cease from building our own kingdoms.
Pull the rug out from under our frivolous ambitions and give us eyes to see our own true motives and frailties.
Send us into the depths of adversity, if need be, to cause us to stretch our hands toward yours, lest we perish.
We admit and confess to you that we have no way of knowing you, and your ways, without your divine intervention working in us to show us the way. Lead us on Father , lead us on.
Prayer of Sir Frances Drake, circa 1590
The things that struck me the most were the parts I put in bold - because in the midst of my daydreams of Africa, I'm slowly beginning to realize that my plans have been made entirely apart from God. I've been dreaming too little. Africa seems too attainable. It's been on my own strength, my own desires, my selfish wishes that this trip has been coming together. As saddened and ashamed as I might be to admit it, I've left God out of the picture.
At what point did I start to think I could live my life apart from God, or at least apart from the direction of the Holy Spirit? At what point did I say to God that I no longer want to hear his direction spoken over my life? Why am I dreaming too little and staying too close to the shore?
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