We Are Just Passing Through

Later this month we will celebrate Thanksgiving. 102 men, women and children made the voyage across the stormy Atlantic, 65 days living aboard the Mayflower, in a space the size of a city bus. A few years ago, much to my surprise, I learned three of my great-grandfathers (ten generations back) were on board, but none of them were Pilgrims. Did you know only 37 of the Mayflower passengers were part of the group that became known as Pilgrims?

The winter in New England was cruel when they arrived. By spring, 51 members of the party had died. Only four of the 18 wives survived. So much sadness and uncertainty, orphaned children, dashed dreams, yet they paused the next fall to have a feast and give thanks to God.

Their struggle for survival lasted at least two more two years. Hunger “pinched them sore.” William Bradford, the governor, writes that the colonists would go to bed not knowing where the next day’s food would come from. There were weeks when they had no bread or beer at all, but “God fed them out of the sea.” Life was beyond difficult. And then, the third week of May 1623, it stopped raining for almost two months. The corn they planted began to wither. At this point, I think I would have given up or felt like Job’s wife: “Curse God and die” (Job 2:9).

But not the pilgrims. They believed all things worked “according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will” (Eph. 1:11, KJV). Therefore, God was the One frustrating their “good hopes of a large crop.” They thought perhaps God brought the drought for their chastisement, so they set apart “a solemn day of humiliation, to seek the Lord by humble and fervent prayer.”

The morning of their day of prayer, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. By the end of their prayer service (it lasted 8-9 hours), it was overcast and by the next morning, it had begun to rain. It continued to rain for two weeks! Bradford writes that the “sweet and gentle showers . . . revive[d] and quicken[ed] the decayed corn.” Another colonist, Edward Winslow, writes: “It was hard to say whether our withered corn or drooping affections were most quickened or revived.”

So, what did they do? Overwhelmed by the mercy of God, they called another holiday. “We thought it would be great ingratitude,” if we should “content ourselves with private thanksgiving for that which by private prayer could not be obtained. And, therefore, another solemn day was set apart and appointed for that end; wherein we returned glory, honor, and praise, with all thankfulness, to our good God.”  They knew what it means to live in true dependence upon God.

These believers lived in a world where daily existence was exhausting, starvation was a real possibility, death regularly came knocking, and yet they trusted God was with them and heard their prayers. Their perseverance came in part from their hopeful expectation: God was with them and would hear their prayers. They also believed this world was not their home. To quote Bradford, “They knew they were pilgrims,” just passing through.

Perhaps as we carve our turkeys in a few weeks, the Lord will remind us of the resilient faith of the pilgrims and help us to remember that we, too, are just passing through.