History is about individuals
Look at the Bible and how much depended on one person. Abraham (and maybe Terah? If Terah received the command to move first. But that is speculation). Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Joshua. Achan. And so forth
and then I am reading a book called _What if?_ by Stephen Ambrose that is a compilation of what several military historians think might have happened during World War I. Either to make it a shorter war, or not a World War at all. Or even things that might have happened during it to prevent World War II (in some cases with Germany winning, in others with Germany not going to war at all). What if Churchill had died in that taxi-pedestrian accident in America? My husband's dad lost his father that way just a few decades later (after surviving parachuting out of a plane and landing in German territory, being caught, then escaping and being recaptured from the concentration camps twice). We certainly thought one person could change history when we sent 18 suicide planes out to kill Yamamoto.
But there were other events, when a single British commander threatened to take his troops out of supporting France at a critical time. Some calls from various individuals bleeding off German troops that were supposed to attack France. The individual soldier behind a gun who missed when a German soldier called Adolf Hitler, hitting just a thigh instead of something more pressing.
So every event we individuals are part of can literally change history (though it is of course most likely that most won't)
OTOH, History is all about God. It is about God putting people where he wants them to be in the events he wants them to be part of in order to prepare them for a purpose he has. So in a long term sense, nothing we do is out of God's Plan, even though there are many appearances that one person could have changed history.
and then I am reading a book called _What if?_ by Stephen Ambrose that is a compilation of what several military historians think might have happened during World War I. Either to make it a shorter war, or not a World War at all. Or even things that might have happened during it to prevent World War II (in some cases with Germany winning, in others with Germany not going to war at all). What if Churchill had died in that taxi-pedestrian accident in America? My husband's dad lost his father that way just a few decades later (after surviving parachuting out of a plane and landing in German territory, being caught, then escaping and being recaptured from the concentration camps twice). We certainly thought one person could change history when we sent 18 suicide planes out to kill Yamamoto.
But there were other events, when a single British commander threatened to take his troops out of supporting France at a critical time. Some calls from various individuals bleeding off German troops that were supposed to attack France. The individual soldier behind a gun who missed when a German soldier called Adolf Hitler, hitting just a thigh instead of something more pressing.
So every event we individuals are part of can literally change history (though it is of course most likely that most won't)
OTOH, History is all about God. It is about God putting people where he wants them to be in the events he wants them to be part of in order to prepare them for a purpose he has. So in a long term sense, nothing we do is out of God's Plan, even though there are many appearances that one person could have changed history.
posted by MommyLydia | 10/26/2006 10:14:00 PM
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