Live like a Pilgrim

Pilgrim houses
  Excerpt:

When the houses were finished, they were not very large. Because the Pilgrims hoped to own their own land and build better houses in the future, the houses in Plymouth Colony in the 1620s were not as comfortable as the ones the Pilgrims left behind in England and Holland. Most of their houses only had one room. The colonists did their cooking, eating, and sleeping, as well as other work, in this room. The women cooked around a hearth, where small fires were lit. The fire from the hearth provided heat during the winter months and light at night. Candles and oil lamps were sometimes lit too. If there was a chimney, it was built of timber and clay and clapboards just like the rest of the house.

Comment: I confess I have not lived like a pilgrim. And I don't mean the 1620 Pilgrims. I was humbled by my experience at the Plimoth Plantation ... and to think that my own relatives (William White and his wife Susanna and their son Resolved) were there!

On Pilgim living:

• King David on eve of his own death challenged Israel to give and build: "Who then is willing to consecrate himself this day to the Lord?" ... "For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, As were all our fathers; Our days on earth are as a shadow, And without hope" (1 Chronicles 29:5,15)
• Psalm 84:5, "Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, Whose heart is set on pilgrimage"
• Hebrews 11:13, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth"
• 1 Peter 2:11, "Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul"

My own commitment to Pilgrim living:

• I need to be more cognizant of the temporariness of life: James :14, "For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."
• I remind myself that all material things are temporary: 2 Peter 3:10-12, "But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up"
• And with regard to material things I have a stewardship: 1 Corinthians 4:2, " Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful"