With All Your Heart

"And now, O Israel, what  does the LORD your God ask of you but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to observe the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good" (Deuteronomy 10:12-13)?

Today as I sit and write this blog I am listening to some good ol' Southern Gospel.  If your day, week, year, has you depressed may I invite you to listen to some of the wonderful Gospel music. It will lift your soul and if you can listen and not clap in time with the music then find yourself singing along; well I can't. My spirits are lifted and my troubles set aside as I worship God with this music resounding in my ears songs of joy in the LORD.  Then I came across this true story one that may be familiar in part to you.

You might be familiar with the English ship Bounty, William Bligh, Fletcher Christian, and the famous mutiny. Here is the story and its final ending.

The English ship Bounty, commanded by lieutenant William Bligh, journeyed to the South Pacific in 1787 to collect plants of the breadfruit tree.  Sailors signed on gladly, considering the voyage a trip to paradise.  Having no second-in-command, Captain Bligh appointed his young friend Fletcher Christian to the post.  The Bounty stayed in Tahiti six months, and the sailors, led by happy-go-lucky Fletcher Christian, enjoyed paradise to the full. When time came for departure, some of the men wanted to stay behind with their island girls.  Three men, trying to desert, were flogged.  The mood on ship darkened, and on April 28, 1789 Fletcher Christian staged the most famous mutiny in history.  Bligh and his supporters were set adrift in an over loaded lifeboat.  The miraculously navigated 3,700 miles to Timor.

The mutineers aboard the Bounty began quarreling about what to do next. Christian returned to Tahiti where he left some of the mutineers, kidnapped some women, took some slaves, and traveled 1,000 miles to uninhabited Pitcairn Island.  There the little group quickly unraveled.  They distilled whiskey from a native plant.  Drunkenness and fighting marked their colony.  Disease and murder eventually took the lives of all the men except for one, Alexander Smith, who found himself the only man on the island, surrounded by an assortment of women and children.   

Then an amazing change occurred.  Smith found the Bounty's neglected Bible.  As he read it, he took its message to heart, then began instructing the little community.  He taught the colonists the Scriptures and helped them obey its instructions.  The message of Christ so transformed their lives that 20 years later, in 1808, when the Topaz landed on the island, it found a happy society of Christians, living in prosperity and peace, free from crime, disease, murder--and mutiny.  Later, the Bible fell into the hands of a visiting whaler who brought it to America.  In 1950 it was returned to the island.  It now resides on display in the church in Pitcairn as a monument of its transforming message.

The Bible is truly the Living Word of God, its transforming power is matched by no other literature or religious book.  It transformed those isolated on Pitcairn Island and it can transform yours and my life.  As I work on my computer today and sing along with these wonderful Southern Gospel Songs I will worship my God and Savior Jesus with all my heart.  Join me and sing songs of praise to Him.  Despair, despondency, problems flee from such a heart.  God will speak to you and give you direction, turn your heart towards Him right now!

Daily Prayer:

Thank You for Your Word, and its message that transformed me, gives me assurance of Your faithfulness.  As Your Word changed lives on the small community on a desolate island I know it can bring to me all the help I need for it is Your words of life.  I sing to You, I praise You, You are my help, my Savior.   Amen