Making History...Our Choices

     A thousand things, all at once, in every life.

     "World War I. Austria had to respond. Germany had to honor its alliance. Czarist Russia had to support its Serbian compatriots. France had to get back at Germany for the Franco-Prussian War. 

World magazine

     "Britain drew a red line at the Belgian border that Germans crossed, dragging all of Europe into a hot mess. The rest is history. An author believes World War I wasn't inevitable; it was a wrong turn down a side street that set the tone for the 20th century. 

     "Adolph Hitler could have been fatally shot on several occasions. Why was he spared to wreak such havoc? Why did a bullet aimed at Donald Trump miss by millimeters? 

     "We can't fathom why one life is spared while another is cut short. God writes large and complex, but his writing in an individual life is equally intricate. 

     "Countless human choices feed into the stream of time even as God shapes the stream. What is He doing? Never just one thing, as John Piper has said, but ten thousand things, all at once, in every life. 

     "As a mighty king once declared, 'None can stay his hand or say to him, 'What have you done?' (Daniel 4:35). How many times has God spared you from a fatal highway crash, or from a nasty virus? How has He used your own wrong turns? 

     "All of us will be history someday, but 'underneath are the everlasting arms.'" 

              Jimmy

November 1962. Angry mood. I was familiar with the hilly Ohio road. 45 mph. Unable to see over the hill, I passed a car anyway. Still in the left lane near the top, another car suddenly appeared. If both of us were going 45 mph, we were closing at 90 mph. I tramped the brake and he "disappeared." I was then on the left bank facing backward, when the other driver came back, suggesting I "sit it out for awhile," and went on his way. I think God spared me...or maybe it was the other driver He most wanted to save.