Implosion Read Free Page B

shepherd boy from Bethlehem who unexpectedly rose to become the beloved king of Israel from whom the Messiah would humanly descend—wrote that God “formed my inward parts” and “wove me in my mother’s womb.” In a remarkable prayer of gratitude to the Lord, David wrote, “I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made . . . Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them” (Psalm 139:13-16). David, too, understood the sovereign will and power of God. He understood that God is the creator who fashions each one of us with a plan and a purpose. He understood that God both knows and decides exactly where and when each one of us will be born, and he makes these decisions for a reason.
    Such truths point us to another truth. God could have chosen you to live in another time and another place. You could have lived in the times of Moses or the times of David or the times of Jesus and Paul. But in his sovereign will, God decided you and I would live in these times. What’s more, he chose the very family and language and country into which you and I would be born. It wasn’t an accident. It was part of a plan. Most of those reading this book are likely to be American citizens. Have you ever taken time to consider why God chose you to be an American? What purpose are you to serve in this country? What role in the future of this country has God planned for you to play? Given the high stakes of this moment, I would encourage you to take some time to give these questions serious thought. Discuss them with your family and friends.
    For those who are living in the United States but are not American citizens, I would encourage you to take some time as well to consider why the Lord has brought you to this country. What action does he want you to take at this critical hour? For those of you who are reading this someplace else, as citizens of another country, it is probably fair to say you would not have picked up this book unless you had an interest in the future of America. Take some time to consider why you care, what you’re hoping to learn, and what role God has for you to play in the future of America as well as in your own country’s future.
    Jews, Gentiles, and the American Dream
    Every American citizen has his or her own “American story,” a heritage to be treasured and celebrated. My family is no different.
    My family on my father’s side was made up of Orthodox Jews who escaped from the “old country”—anti-Semitic, totalitarian, czarist Russia—during the pogroms against the Jews in the early 1900s. They made their way to America searching for religious freedom, freedom from persecution, and the opportunity for a better way of life.
    Given that both of my paternal grandparents died before I was three years old, I never had the chance to talk to them and ask them their stories. Sadly, neither of my grandparents told my father or his brother many stories from the old country. They passed down few documents to us. So it’s been challenging to piece together their journey. About the only story that has been passed down through our family is that when our Orthodox Jewish relatives wanted to leave Russia, some of them had to escape in a hay wagon that was crossing out of Russia into a neighboring country. (The best we can surmise is that they went into Poland.) Czarist soldiers plunged their swords into the hay to see if there was anyone hiding in there. By God’s grace, no one was injured. By God’s grace, my relatives weren’t discovered. And by God’s grace, having gotten out of Russia, they didn’t decide to settle in Poland or Germany or anywhere else in central Europe. Many Russian Jews did settle there, of course, escaping the horrors of the Russian pogroms only to experience the horrors of the Third Reich and the Holocaust.
    Called by freedom and the promise of a new world, my