Disturb Me

I was relistening to a sermon that I heard at a conference last.  The speaker was Craig Groeschel of lifechurch.tv.  I don’t know a lot about him, but I was convicted by his message.  Anyway…as part of the conclusion to his message, he quoted from the poem below and prayed that our lives would be “disturbed.”  I do pray that God would “Disturb me” to the point that I truly rid my life of self and leaving to please me but to truly fulfill God’s call on my love to love and serve Him and my “neighbors.”  Disturb me God.

“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.

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 into the future in strength, courage, hope and love.”

Sir Francis Drake

Cyber Hymnal

Our church is such a mixture of people with varied spiritual backgrounds!  As a rule, most of what we do at our church is consider “contemporary.”  By contemporary, I mean that we have a worship band instead of a piano, organ and chior.  We sing mostly current Christian music and only occasionally mix in an old hymn, usually performed with a contemporary twist. 

Anyway…a couple of us were discussing in small group a few weeks back about old hymns that we love and miss.  While we do mix in the occasional hymn at church, I think people miss out on the rich Christian tradition that the old hymns pass along.  Some of the lyrics are so amazing – I wish everyone could know them.

So, if you get in a nostalgic way, go to Cyber Hymnal to find so many of the old hymn with lyrics and instrumental accompaniment.  It’s not the flashiest of sites but it may take many of you on a trip down memory lane.

Poetry/Prayer Day

Just wanted to share a couple of poems/prayers from a couple of books I’m reading. The first, from the book, The Fight, by John White is a poem by Franics of Assissi:

Lord, make me an intsrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light; and
where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may
not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love;
for it is in the giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and
it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

The other is a poem from JI Packer from his book “Knowing God.” He writes:

Lord it belongs not to my care
Whether I die or live;
To love and share Thee is my share,
And this Thy grace must give.

If life be long, I will be glad,
That I may long obey;
If short – then why should I be sad
To soar to endless day?