I’ve always been fascinated by Sir Francis Drake. I can remember first learning about this English explorer in a Social Studies class in elementary school. I dutifully recorded a summary of his life and exploits from the blackboard in my notebook and drew a color picture of his famous ship “The Golden Hind”.
His life
Drake’s life reads like a historical fiction full of swashbuckling adventure. Born in 1540 in Tavistock, England, Francis was the oldest of 12 sons. His father was a farmer and pastor. For a while, the family actually lived in an old ship. Perhaps this inspired young Francis to a life at sea.
Drake became infamous for commandeering Spanish galleys ladened with gold from the New World. This earned him the nickname "El Draque" (The Dragon) from the Spanish, who put a huge price on his head.
The Portuguese explorer, Ferdinand Magellan, had been the first to circumnavigate the globe in 1522. Drake would be the second to accomplish this amazing feat. He left Plymouth, England, in 1577 with six ships and 164 crewmen. He returned three years later with one ship and 58 men.
During those years he sailed across the Atlantic and around South America to the west coast of the Americas claiming the land for England and naming it "Nova Albion" (New Britain). He then crossed the Pacific and Indian oceans before sailing around Africa and arriving back home in 1580.
The Golden Hind was full of stolen treasure and exotic spices. Queen Elizabeth I knighted him "Sir Francis Drake" — a villainous pirate to the Spanish but a national hero to the English.
By 1585 Britain was at war with Spain and Drake helped destroy a Spanish fleet at Cadiz two years later. When Spain assembled a huge Armada of ships to attack England in 1588, Drake sent “fire ships” into them causing them to be dispersed and eventually defeated.
Drake's voyage in 1596 would be his last. He was 55. While attacking Spanish ships in Panama, he fell ill with dysentery and died. His body in full armor was lowered overboard in a lead coffin. Fittingly, his final resting place would be the sea.
His prayer
But what about this man’s faith? The following “poem prayer” has been attributed to him…
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.
This we ask in the name of our Captain, who is Jesus Christ.
This is Drake’s disturbing prayer asking God to disturb us from our small dreams and timid faith. I do not suggest that Drake always acted morally or upheld Christian standards during his long and eventful naval career. But his prayer is a wonderful challenge which still rings true today for all of us to dream big, to live with eternity in mind, and to practice a bold faith for our Captain!
Rob Weatherby is a retired pastor who likes history.
