A Puritan's Voyage Through Life


A Puritan’s life was centered around their relationship with God. They did everything with God in mind, hoping to receive salvation in return for devotedly following his will. This desire for Puritan’s to have God lead them through life and recreate them in accordance to His will is reflected in Edward Taylor’s poem, “Huswifery”, where the speaker prays to God to “Make me, O Lord, Thy spinning wheel complete” (Taylor 1) with the speaker comparing himself to an unfinished spinning wheel that needs God to do the finishing touches and mold him into the person He wants the speaker to be. This journey of depending on God to know what’s best for you and trusting him to lead your through the ups and downs of life can also be compared to sailing.

However, instead of using a spinning wheel as a metaphor for a person, I would use a sailboat, with God as the captain. In an ideal situation where a Puritan has complete devotion to God, the captain puts coordinates into the boat and the vessel follows them. If the boat strays due to the winds and waves, the captain will use the wheel to guide the boat back on track, and the boat will follow the captain’s lead into safer waters. When a storm surrounds the boat, it will lean and groan, but it will not lose faith and tip. Instead the captain will use the sails to harness the contrary winds and waves and move the boat against them, just like how God uses people’s spiritual gifts to get them through their calamities. However, when a Puritan chooses to ignore the path God has set for them, they can end up more easily influenced by riptides and other dangerous waters. The boat of a less-devoted puritan may be led astray towards land, where there are jagged rocks waiting beneath the waves to slice into the belly of the boat and destroy it. But if the boat heeds the direction of the captain who tacks the boat (turns it around) it will avoid its destruction and be saved, just like the Puritan who follows God’s wishes will be saved from their demise. When a person allows God to steer their life’s direction, the journey may be rough at times, but with His guidance one will be assured they are on the path that will shape them into the best person they can be. 

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