© 2025 Don Pinson | (To download, right-click on the gray play bar and select “Save Audio As”)

The little boy tugged at the young man’s coat sleeve. “How far is it to America?” he asked, “Will we soon be there?” “No, lad,” the man replied, “It will take many days to cross this huge ocean.” The little boy gazed briefly across the ocean to the west. Then, unaware of the risks of such a voyage, he ran to find his friend to tell him this ship, the Mayflower, would be their playground for a long time. The young man continued to gaze across the vast ocean. His thoughts drifted back twenty years—to the time he had first met these people he was now a part of.

He remembered the wonderful meetings they had in their homes in England. For the first time in his life he had felt accepted, really accepted. These people were genuine, somehow he just knew it. Though others were saying this group were bigots who thought they were the only ones who were right and that they had “gone off the deep end” with their religion, he knew the truth. These people were real. They people didn’t claim to be perfect. They readily admitted that they too were capable of selfishness. But the unique thing about them (that so set them apart from those who were against them) was that they had entered into an agreement to help each other not give into selfishness by letting their friends point it out to them. And the way they did it seemed safer to him than living the way his relatives did. Because they recognized their own bent toward selfishness, they didn’t trust their own thoughts alone. They had agreed to compare their thoughts about another member’s actions to what the Bible said about those actions. Those who were critical of them certainly didn’t live that way. As he had considered their agreement (which they called their “Covenant”) he had come to recognize this was the safest way to live on this earth and had decided that—no matter what anyone said—he would cast his lot with this group, who now referred to themselves as “Pilgrims”. The years had brought them much hardship, but also much maturity. The peace they enjoyed was worth all the difficulties of living in a world system which was against their Covenant.