American historians say the family trees of most Americans can only be traced back to 4 generations within the United States. For most of us, this means that our great-grandparents probably had a thick accent, spoke another language, and arrived from another location in the world.
This country is uniquely made up of people from all nations, creeds, cultures, languages, and races. Many of their origins can be traced to specific migratory habits of whole groups of people, African slaves notwithstanding, since theirs was not a migration; it was an abduction. Eastern Europeans came during the turn of the century with the development of the machine age. Those from Ireland came en masse during the potato famine; Africans from the Caribbean and Asian-Americans began their migration during the early years of the 20th century for all types of opportunities; and America’s Mexican neighbors began crossing the borders, as all the other groups in the nation began prospering, well enough, to ignore the more menial jobs of their great-grandparents.
Now, unlike any other nation in the world, the United States of America is truly diverse in its culture, food, accents, languages, etc. When we look back at all the cultures within the US, we have to admit, God certainly had a very specific plan for this nation. The “Founding Fathers,” charted and plotted a concept that was so far-reaching into the future, there is absolutely no way that those original slave-owning founders could have possibly imagined what the nation would become, yet evolved we have!
God has you and your family here for a reason. Like visionaries before them, your great-grandparents, grandparents, or parents somehow believed they were casting a special life for you. Like Abraham’s seed fulfilling prophesy, so it is that we live at this time, in this place, helping to cast our family’s story into the future for God’s purpose. Ask God to help you to fulfill His purpose in your life; because ultimately the question is, will God’s purpose be fulfilled with you, or without you? L.
Study Reference: Genesis 22-25, Proverbs 29:18
From: "God's Timing, Vision, & Blessing." In The Master's Hands: 365 Daily Devotions For Everyday Living.
Copyright © 2014 by Lavona E. Campbell