Disturb Us, Lord

In part three of The Parent Trap, I challenged parents to avoid the safety trap. If parents always keep their kids safe, they will find themselves protecting their children from Jesus. He calls us to follow him, and following him is not safe. People who follow Jesus must live by faith and faith includes risk. You must take up your cross daily and follow him.

So parents might embrace “The American Dream Jesus,” who is so popular in our consumer version of Christianity. But this will only endanger children more; in their boredom with the view of Jesus that simply keeps them safe, they will pursue risk in all the wrong ways and miss really living. I closed the message with a poem sent to me by my father. Many have asked about it, so I’ve included it here.

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.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

– Sir Francis Drake who sailed in 1577