Take God into Account

       The pilgrims had listed their reasons for going and they were good and noble goals.  They had also developed a list of reasons to stay, a combination of real dangers and imaginary fears.  As each day passed, the fears grew.  Would the group ever have the courage to set sail?  How would you decide?

       Here's how Bradford records the answers to their objections.

1. "All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and must be met and overcome with answerable courage.  the dangers were great, but not desperate; the difficulties were many, but not invincible."  Every great task has risks that must be met with an equal amount of courage.
2. "Many of the things feared might never befall."  The pilgrims realized that a fearful imagination can get the best of you.
3. All the fears "through the help of God, by fortitude and patience, might either be borne or overcome."  The pilgrims list their reasons and their fears and then they let God walk into the room.
4. They believed they might expect the blessing of God because their ends were good and honorable.  What a clue to help us in our own decision-making processes.

Bradford ends his discussion of their decision with a statement of courage in the face of fear:  "Though they should lose their lives in this action, yet might they have the comfort of knowing that their endeavor was worthy."  God bless those pilgrim-adventurers.  May their tribe increase!

Reasons to Stay Put

       In every group of pilgrim decision-makers, there are always people who believe the proposed scheme will never work.  It is important to deal squarely with the objections.  Which are real possibilities and which are imaginary fears?

       Bradford lists the reasons that the pilgrims gave for staying put in Leyden.  Under the banner of "inconceivable toils and dangers," they feared:

• The length of the voyage was too long- the weak among them would never survive.
• The primitive conditions would prove too miserable to endure- famine, nakedness, and want were surely in their future.
• The change of air and diet and water would provide ample opportunity for sickness and infection

       The fourth fear deserves some attention.  They would run into savages "who were cruel, barbarous and treacherous, furious in their rage, and merciless when they get the upper hand- not content to kill, they delight in tormenting people in the most bloody way possible; flaying some alive with the shells of fishes, cutting off the members and joints of others piecemeal, broiling them on the coals, and eating collops of their flesh in their sight whilst they live, with other cruelties too horrible to be related."
       Fear has the ear of these pilgrims now.  Whose has been telling them stories?  Sailors?  Other adventurers abroad?  What could they imagine would be worse than what they had already described?  This was certainly not their experience.  Not with Squanto.  Not with Massasoit.  Not with the inhabitants of the "praying villages" established in New England over the next 50 years.
       Fear takes on a life of its own.  The longer the pilgrims considered the decision, the more they put it off, the worse their imaginations became.    The courage to risk was compromised.  How do you rationally answer imaginary objections?