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“What if is the historian’s favorite question.”

A thought by Mark Batterson, (2015-10-06) from his book, If: Trading Your If Only Regrets for God's What If Possibilities (Kindle Location 218). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. (Click on the title to go to Amazon.com to buy the book.)

Mark says, “Technically, history is the study of past events— what actually happened. But there is a branch of history, counterfactual theory, that asks the what if questions.”

Think of this.  Mark says, “What if one of the four musket balls that passed through George Washington’s coat during the Battle of Monongahela in 1755 had pierced his heart? What if the D-Day invasion by Allied forces on June 6, 1944, had failed to halt the Nazi regime? What if the confederates had won the Battle of Little Round Top at Gettysburg on July 2, 1863?”

Mark does the same thing with Scripture, “What if David had missed Goliath’s forehead? What if Esther had not fasted, thereby finding favor, thus saving the Jewish people from genocide? What if Joseph and Mary had not heeded the angel’s warning to flee Bethlehem before Herod’s henchmen showed up?”

Now as you look at those you see that they are tipping points that could have changed history and that is also true in our lives. 

Mark shares, “Neuroimaging has shown that as we age, our cognitive center of gravity shifts from the imaginative right brain to the logical left brain. At some point, most of us stop living out of imagination and start living out of memory. That’s the day we stop creating the future and start repeating the past. That’s the day we stop living by faith and start living by logic. That’s the day we stop dreaming of what if possibilities and end up with if only regrets. But it doesn’t have to be that way!”

I want to learn from my past but I don’t want to live it over and over.  There is too much creating and living by faith still at my age of 68.  What if I lived to 98 and I was healthy all the way?  What awesome wonders does God have in store for me?

What about you? 

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