Why are you YOU? Why are you NOW?

 Small thoughts in the creaky uncertain stumblings of approaching spring.

"Why are you YOU? Why are you NOW?"

I think about these questions sometimes when my mind is not otherwise occupied. Why of all the billions (or more...) of God's children am I me? And in all of eternity, why am I now?

I wonder about these questions as I think about my family. And about my country. I have a personal conviction that who, when and where we are matters a great deal in the overall Plan. And that something as eternally significant as our mortal placement on earth is not left to chance. In simpler terms: Who and where we are matters. Enormously.

Part of my thoughts on this have to do with gratitude. Of all the times in history that I might have arrived on stage, I'm privileged to be here during the final moments of the play. The climax of all history, when all of the conflicts are at their greatest and when the opposition is the most fierce. What does it say about God's trust in me that I am here now during such a time?

I also think often about accountability. No one in history has been given as much as I have. I am wealthy beyond the comprehension of someone even a mere one hundred years ago. In particular, I live in America, a land "choice above all others." But why? Is it so that I might advance my own interests and pursue wealth and material "things"? Or am I here so that I might seek to do all I can to extend the wealth bestowed by God to me upon so many of His children that lack even the essentials components of existence?

Thinking...thinking...thinking...

It is daunting to consider what I must teach my children. I tremble at what they must know in order to thrive in a world so warped and corrosive.

How to teach them WHO they are... And how to teach them WHY.