Welcome back! Yesterday I promised to let you in on some other discoveries I’ve made concerning blessings. I hope you are ready.

Just to set the stage, I want to remind you of my suggestion (from my first post) that perhaps God sometimes orchestrates the u-turn. I’ve been thinking about that and maybe that isn’t quite the best way to state what I mean. Maybe it is more like “orchestrates the opportunities” for the u-turn. With that in mind, here’s the story.

Back in the summer of 1775, a group of men from the wilds of Tennessee gathered. They were unhappy about their tax situation. Virginia and North Carolina both demanded taxes from Tennessee as both claimed ownership of the area. So, the men chose a few delegates to travel to Pennsylvania where they heard a congress of men from all the colonies were meeting. Perhaps they could get this ownership/tax problem settled. A young man named John was picked to go along as one of the volunteers.

That July, when John and the other men were meeting with some of our founding fathers, their settlement back home was attacked by renegades. When John returned, he learned his parents and most of his siblings had been killed. One brother was maimed and one brother, a deaf mute, taken captive. If John had been there, the odds were he would have been killed as well. Since he wasn’t there, he still had his life to live. He married, raised a large family and watched one son rise to become a Representative in the Congress of the United States. This son also had an unsuccessful bid for the office of president and eventually left for Texas where he fought at a place called the Alamo. You’ve probably heard of him—Colonel David Crockett.

My thought is this: If John had not gone to Philadelphia, he probably would have died. If he had died, there would have been no Davy Crockett. If there had been no Davy Crockett, there would have been no “me”—Davy Crockett is my great, great, great grandfather. God blessed Grandpa John with the gift of longer life by orchestrating the idea to go to the First Continental Congress for help and advisement. That did not change John’s free will, however, which he freely wielded by turning to alcohol (he was a raging drunk) instead of u-turning to God when faced with the torment of what we now know to be post traumatic stress syndrome.

So why is it that in spite of numerous opportunities to turn to God and allow Him to work in our lives, we often do horrible, destructive things, refusing His mercy, yet still live to tell about it?

My theory, and it is just a theory, is that God knows us and blesses us before we are even born. If our ancestor does not surrender to God’s love and guidance, then maybe the next generation will. We are not stuck in the curses of our ancestors. We do not have to remain in the family fetters. God has blessed us with life and gives us the opportunity to turn to Him, allowing Him to remove the chains that bind.

I’d love to hear what you have to say about this. Like I said, this is just a theory on my part, but Jeremiah 1:5 gives me the idea that this theory is a possibility.

Can’t wait to hear from you!

Abundant blessings,
Jenny