Guest Essay by Sylvia Vrabec
This Thanks giving we honor the Pilgrims who set our country on a new course that we should follow for as long as our country would survive. As the Mayflower left Plymouth, England her sails filled with a breeze, the breeze of freedom.
They left behind authoritarianism, restriction, government from the top down, bondage. They headed towards the New World. They had no idea if they’d ever get there, but as William Brewster said, “Yea, though we should lose our lives in this action—-we know our endeavors would be honorable.”
One hundred fifty years later thirteen colonies severed their ties from the same country from which Pilgrims had come from for the same reason. Authoritarian, restrictive demands of the government. As George Washington watched the British armada of ships arriving and sail up the Hudson River he saw the massive power of King George. What could an army, a pittance in size do to overcome such power? In the same way that the Pilgrims relied on the Lord of heaven and earth for help, so did George Washington look to Him that gave to mankind the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. A government that would be in the hands of the people, not in the hand of the few.
Then eleven years later representatives from thirteen united States met to set sail on an unknown course. Their destination was clear, but how to get there was an unknown. Never in the course of human history had it been possible for man to chart a way to freedom.
Old Benjamin Franklin provided the tool that was needed. PRAY. That was what they did then and for the next two and one half months. God heard and answered.
The pitfalls that America could fall into were well known. As these representatives knew history and had steered a course in partial self government for one-hundred fifty years. They had to find a way through the storms, the rocks, the shoals that the Mayflower had faced. Many plans were suggested, debated and prayed about.
The small ship the Mayflower fought against mountainous seas, conflicting winds and currents for sixty-six days, cooped up inside a leaky cabin, before they reached land. On the tip of a peninsula that they named Providence they wrote and signed a document that embraced the fundamentals of government that provided the course to follow for freedom.
This Thanksgiving let us thank God for the Pilgrims and for the course that they set. May we continue on that course.
Long time Christian scholar Syliva Vrabec is the author of the coming Nordskog Publishing title Oceanography. In this book Sylvia restores a Biblical view to science.
© 2013, Used by Permission
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