HERITAGE, DESTINY, LEGACY

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In order to be born you needed:

2 parents

4 grandparents

8 great grandparents

16 2x great grandparents

32 3x great grandparents

64 4x great grandparents

128 5x great grandparents

256 6x great grandparents

512 7x great grandparents

1,024 8x great grandparents

2,048 9x great grandparents

4,094 10x great grandparents

For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed a total of 4,094 ancestors over the past 400 years.

And if you go back 33 generations, or about 1,500 years, we all have 1 billion direct ancestors (grandparents), and for each additional generation this number doubles. 

And to think this vast number of people have long since gone on to their reward, and they depend on you and me to continue living out the life they have bequeathed to us. We are currently the only hands, and feet and voice they have left to them. 

Think for a moment about how many struggles, how many battles, how much sadness, happiness, love stories, and hope for the future your ancestors experienced for you to exist in the present moment. We are the dream of those who went before us.

Not only so, but you and I will one day take our place alongside our ancestors. As a result, I pray for my unborn, unseen, unknown, unnamed descendants that God will bless, encourage and help them, and use them to impact their generation. 

The foregoing sums up my favorite three words: Heritage, Destiny, Legacy. We receive a Heritage. We fulfill a Destiny. We leave a Legacy.

by William McDonald, PhD & info from internet post