Daily Devotional – June 12, 2020

Well, good afternoon and happy Friday to you. I trust your whole week has gone well and here we are looking forward to the weekend. It looks like it's going to be a beautiful weekend and good weekend to get outside, get some things done, maybe around the house, around the yard, but especially to just get some time for a day of rest and refreshment on the Lord's Day and trust you're looking forward to that on your weekend.

So now that some of the easing of the COVID restrictions have taken place in some places, it turns out that the reopening of the Lego stores has become quite the event. Yeah, the Lego stores because people have lined up for blocks.

You may have to think about that one. Well, actually, I don't know about you, but I'm refusing to buy any more Legos until the company apologizes to all the law enforcement officers in this country for suspending the sales of the police force kits.

Silliness. All kinds of insanity and silliness going on in today's culture in this mayhem. Speaking of mayhem, I saw somebody posted a little quip that Time Magazine Person of the Year is going to be that all-state guy in the commercial called Mayhem.

Be a good choice. Well, anyway, are you familiar with William Bradford? William Bradford. You may remember he was one of the key leaders among the Pilgrims who left Holland in 1620. 120 of them aborted the Mayflower and headed for the New World.

Well, anticipating that departure, Bradford wrote regarding the Pilgrims that they had, quote, a great hope and an inward zeal for the propagating and advancing of the gospel of the kingdom of Christ in those remote parts of the world, end quote.

So off they went and headed across the sea. They, you remember, landed in Plymouth and settling in the Plymouth area in early winter in December, and it was just a brutal winter, and over half of the Pilgrims actually died during that winter.

Well, after the winter was over, Bradford then was unanimously chosen to be the governor of that Plymouth colony, and he served in that role. He served courageously and skillfully for more than 30 years.

William Bradford’s Early Hardships and Calling

Well, one of the things that struck me regarding was the reading of his early life, and it was really.

Quite.

Compelling, I guess would be the word. He was born in 1590 in Austerfield, England, and when he was 16 months old, his father died, and that left him alone as an only child of his mother, Alice. By the time William was four years old, Alice remarried but for some reason after she remarried, she sent William to go live with his grandfather, but then his grandfather died two years later.

So here he is, a six-year-old boy, shuttled back to his mother, Alice, but shortly after he's sent back to his mom, she died. So here he is, orphaned as a six, seven-year-old boy, and then he went to live with his two uncles, again, alone, no siblings, and spent those years of his childhood pretty much alone.

Well, his uncles were in agricultural business, and they wanted him to learn that family trade of farming, but somewhere along the way, William developed a protracted illness, and that prevented him from working in the fields.

Well, during that long recovery period, he turned to books. He turned to his books, and they were books of significance. They were books like Foxe's Book of Martyrs and so forth that served to shape his outlook and his frame of mind.

But at age 12, he became connected with a separatist congregation where he met William Brewster, and he was really kind of a father figure to the young man. Now, just as a reminder, the separatist congregations were those in England that were not Church of England congregations.

They felt like they needed to be separated from the Church of England and not be part of a state church. Well, when his uncles found out that William had connected with the non-conformists, the separatist congregations, they ordered him to quit attending their meetings.

Now that brought him face-to-face with a significant choice. What is he going to do? Is he going to obey his uncles, or is he going to continue meeting with the separatists where he'd grown some convictions about the way things ought to be in terms of worship and the church?

So, much to his uncle's displeasure, he continued on worshiping with the non-conformists. Well, eventually, in the Church of England and in England, persecution broke out against the separatist congregation, and Bradford, along with the rest of his church family, fled to Holland.

While they were there, the church was there in Holland, the congregation decided to leave even Holland for the New World, because even when they were in Holland, the English were able to wreak havoc upon the British citizens who had left for freedom of religion.

So they decided to leave for the New World and get a fresh start, a place where they might find some freedom. Well, by that time, Bradford had married, and he and his young wife, Dorothy, had a three-year-old son.

But looking at the prospect of crossing the ocean that time of year especially, and seeing how potentially dangerous it was, they thought it would be best to leave their three-year-old son behind. Now, are you getting the accumulation of emotional difficulties that this guy would have faced?

Father died, sent to live with his grandfather, grandfather died, sent back to live with his mother, his mother died, then goes to live with a couple of uncles, he connects with his particular church, the uncles oppose him, he flees to Holland, he gets married, and now they decide they need to flee to the New World.

They flee to the New World, but leave their three-year-old son behind. I can't imagine the difficulty of that kind of a decision. Well, the voyage, as you know, was long and arduous voyage for those 120 pilgrims, and they finally reached Provincetown Harbor on November 11th in 1620, but it took another month for them to decide and settle on a suitable place to build their settlement.

Well, in the meantime, Bradford's wife Dorothy fell overboard off the ship and drowned. There's actually some consideration that she took her own life, that all of this was so traumatic and distressing that she committed suicide.

There's no way to know for sure, but one writer comments on that, on her death, that with Dorothy gone and his young son an ocean away, Bradford was alone again, once again. Alone. Alone, except for the ongoing presence of the Lord.

Providence in Suffering and the Example of Joseph

As I read this brief synopsis of Bradford's life, there are many things that struck me. One of them is how little, how very little, we really know of hardship, deprivation, and heartache. When I read some of this to Chris, her remark was, we're such babies.

We're such babies. Well, then I also, what also struck me was how mysterious are the providential workings of God. All of these experiences of Bradford's life, they shaped him and molded him into the man that he was when he was voted to be the governor of the Plymouth Colony, and then led that colony through a great deal of upheaval over the next 30 years.

Working with the Pilgrims, making peace, or the Native Americans, and making peace with them. Eventually having to deal with them in a military way. It was a very great struggles, but the Lord used all of these experiences in Bradford's life to prepare him for that.

It reminded me of the life of Joseph, how all of the difficulties and challenges and heartaches that Joseph went through were really preparing him to be the effective administrator in Egypt that he was.

Then another thing that struck me was how greatly the Lord uses those who trust him. Who don't use their painful, difficult circumstances as an excuse just to wallow in self-pity, or to lash out in anger and rage.

Instead, they allow those hardships to become character molding experiences. Experiences that enable the child of God to make a more powerful, positive impact in the lives of other people. Reminded of 1 Peter 4 verse 19, which says,.

Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. And then, fourthly, what struck me in Bradford's life was how vital it is that we count on the promises of our Lord's presence and faithfulness.

Even when it seems that we're absolutely all alone. The Lord has promised his people, I will never leave you nor forsake you. I'm reminded of the Lord's promise to his people Israel. He said in Isaiah 43,.

But now thus says the Lord who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Why? For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

So I think of that promise that God made to Israel, and you see it applied in the life of someone like William Bradford. But we must not lose sight of the fact that this is the same God who is the God of the New Testament Christian.

And.

He is the same God who in Hebrews 12 has promised, I will never leave you or forsake you. So again, I don't know too many of us who've gone through the kind of hardships and difficulties of life that a William Bradford has gone through.

But whatever the case, even if we were to do so, one thing we can be sure of, we who are Christ, we can be confident that he is with his people, and that he uses those hardships, those difficulties, providentially orchestrating them in their lives, to accomplish his good purposes, and to mold them, to shape us into the characters that he wants us to be.

Thanksgiving for God's Providence and a Weekend Blessing

Well, let's give thanks to the Lord for his gracious and providential and sovereign working in the lives of his own. Our Father and our God, as we close out this week, there may have been great challenges that we faced in these past six days, five, six days.

And yet those of us who are Christ can look back over it, and we can be confident that you have been with us, even if we've gone through waters, and even if we have been even if we have been refined by fires.

We thank you for your presence. Thank you for your providence, guiding and shaping and molding our lives. Now, bless these thoughts to our hearts this day, we pray, and we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

All right. Well, I trust the Lord to give you a good rest of your day today, and a great weekend. And I look forward to, if you can make it out to the Lord's house on Sunday, we'll be meeting together inside, in the church building, 10 30 Sunday morning, worshiping our God together.

I trust you can make it then. If not, catch us on live stream. We'll be here. All right. Have a good day. God bless.