Hammer on Anvil '

Often my buddy Jay and I will sit and discuss a wide range of topics. One of our favorite spots for these talks is under the Thomas Jefferson statue at the MO State Capitol. Recently I had read over the Declaration of Independence and was thinking about it while sitting under the statue. Kind of cool since he was the author of the document. As I sat there and considered the "self-evident truths" that all men are created equal and have the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, I wondered how Jefferson could write that and yet be a slave owner. He penned those words that we are all equal, yet he and many devout Christians treated an entire race as less than human. How could they have been so blind?

A similar situation is Jesus' first disciples. They spent roughly 3 years with him and yet abandoned him at the end. I know I have been guilty of the thought, "If I had seen and experienced all they had I would have no trouble believing. I wouldn't doubt for a second and certainly not abandon him." How could they have been so blind?

I ask this (how could they be so blind) not so I can show how much better I am than they. Rather it is because it troubles me. The phrase "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." comes to mind when considering these things. It is important to learn from the mistakes of others and where people have been blind, but more than anything it makes ask To what am I blind to that will be criticized in the future?

"Jesus said to him, 'What do you want me to do for you?'
The blind man replied, 'Rabbi, I want to see!'" Mark 10:46-52

I was flipping through my randomly kept journal this evening a little bit. The journal itself is loosely comprised of items I have been praying over, studies, random thoughts, lamentations/celebrations over a woman(lots of these) and generally just anything I've felt worthwhile to write down. It's strange how even though these events that happened to me were important enough to write about that without this review and going back over them that they are so quickly forgotten. Many of them are almost even foreign in nature and I find myself wondering who was this person going through these struggles or relating these events.

The value and benefit of keeping and reviewing these "currently praying about" lists is easy to see because it is the easiest to quantify. There have regularly been items that after praying over that enough time has followed that the initial prayer was completely forgotten and so the answer goes unnoticed and unaccredited to God's hand. So to have perfect 20/20 when looking into the past it is encouraging to see how these answers whether they were yes, no or wait were manifested and how or when they finally did come about. That way my faith is strengthened and my countenance is turned to thanksgiving after looking back over these things.

The relating of current spiritual condition whether confessions of sin or expressions of joy and contentment are always eye opening as well. Seeing how deep into a pit one has been in the past certainly gives more appreciation for where a person is right now. On the flip side having the chance to look back onto a mountain top experience can bear great conviction to get right with the Lord whatever may now be wrong or out of place. Not in an attempt to duplicate the prior experience, but in looking deeply to see what may currently be hindering or keeping me from walking in freedom, joy or peace.

And finally as a guy the loathing/loving displayed towards whatever woman I was dealing with at the time immediately cuts to the quick. It plumbs the depths for any of those forgotten lessons or experiences and brings forward again those emotions that I had felt at one time. It gives me a chance to examine them, to see if anything currently matches or lines up with previous experiences, and even the opportunity to fix things that have gone awry. This quick way to re-examine my relationships/friendships with women and see how or why they may have moved back or forward can be tough, but it can be very helpful and healing as well.

Overall the self examination and historical documentation of one's life is a good thing and I would encourage others no matter how sporadic your journal entries may be to still continue to keep them. I've got a few gaps of 8-10 months between a couple of my entries. As for the physical format; get a nice moleskine notebook or glue bound notepad. Not so you seem like such the deep thinker, but so you have it all in one place. With the nicer notebook, unlike spiral bound or loose leaf, it stays all in one place and bound together easy to keep on your bookshelf...and it does look super cool to anyone that comes across you writing or sketching in one. Always write the date/time of the entry so you can get an idea of the frame of mind you might have been later when looking back if you wrote something down that was at say 1:00am after a wonderful evening on a date or at 4:00am after anguish about some ridiculous situation with a woman. For that matter these don't even need to be serious entries, you can make them fun too or even just notebooks that contain sketches of Ligers and Hobbits. Whatever you put into them you'll appreciate the opportunity to look back in time on your own life and history. Hopefully your faith will be stronger and your walk will be deeper because of it.

In 2005, I really struggled with the concept of Predestination. We were discussing it at the Baptist Student Union and one student in particular was making a very compelling argument in favor of it. I don’t remember all that was said, but God gave me an analogy to make sense of it all.

Consider the movie Paycheck. In this movie, Ben Affleck’s character creates a machine that can see into the future. Because of this, he knows that his employers are going to have him murdered. However, he signed a contract that the company will wipe his memory soon, which means he will forget that he is going to be murdered. In order to remind himself and keep himself from being murdered, he mails himself an envelope with an assortment of everyday items. Any normal person looking at these items would never imagine they held any significance. However, because Ben can see into the future, he knows that these items will lead him down a path that prevents him from being murdered.

Let me give one example of how an item helped. At one point, Ben is sitting on a bus. He is looking at a diamond ring from the envelope and wondering why he sent it to himself when suddenly a kid grabs the ring and runs off the bus. Ben, thinking he needs the ring, runs after the kid. In the end, he doesn’t get the ring back. However, the really significant thing is that at the end of the chase, he is exactly where he needs to be in order for something else to happen that will keep him on the path of not being murdered.

When the kid took the ring, Ben had free will to decide how to respond. However, since he had looked into the future, he already knew that he would respond by running after the kid and ending up where he needed to be. Thus, he influenced his own free will to achieve an end he desired.

Now, with some careful thought, we can see how this analogy can give us insight into how God works. God is sovereign, which means He is in control at all times. What is it that God controls? He controls the items that are in the envelopes given to each one of us. As humans, we are very, very limited in how far we can see the consequences of an action, but God sees all of time, so He knows how even something small might affect things far into the future.

For example, let’s create a fictional woman named Jill. In the “envelope of items” that God has for Jill, there is a flat tire. Jill is driving down the highway one day when she gets a flat and has to pull over. As she is sitting there, worrying about what to do next, a nice guy named Jack comes along and helps her put on a spare tire. That is how Jack and Jill meet. From there, romance blossoms, they get married, and they have several children. Since God had a clear view of all of time, He knew that the flat tire would have this result.

The same kind of logic can be applied toward salvation and the concept of Predestination. Since God is in control of what items are in our envelope, He uses that control to lead us toward salvation.

But now we arrive at the point at which I struggled so much and the point that makes Predestination such a hot topic. If God is in complete control, if He determines the items that are in each person’s envelope that will lead them to the consequences He desires, why isn’t everyone saved?

Many people have attempted to answer this question and have come to the conclusion that if God can, but God doesn’t, God must not want to. In other words, God must choose certain people to be saved and certain people not to be saved.

For the longest time, I really struggled with this. I had always thought that God was all-loving and wanted everyone to be saved, but that didn’t seem to match up with the evidence that: 1) God can control our choices by controlling the items in our envelope, and 2) not everyone is saved. The argument could be made that we all have free will, which God cannot control. However, that is only partially true. Even though we have free will, God can control our actions by a combination of 1)controlling the items in our envelope, and 2) knowing how the items in our envelope will cause us to act.

Let’s say a fictional character named Joe is in a room. God wants Joe to leave the room, but Joe, who has free will, decides to stay. So God decides to put a fire in Joe’s envelope. A gas leak in the room is ignited by an appliance and the room bursts into flame. Now, Joe still has free will. He could still stay in the room if he wanted to, but God, who can see the future, knows that the fire will cause Joe to want to leave the room.

Even though we have free will, God can still influence every choice we make.

So, I hope now you can see the dilemma. I struggled with this to the point where I finally pleaded with God to either give me answers or give me peace of mind. He delivered. He led me to a verse for encouragement, then He gave me peace of mind for several years, and about a year ago, He gave me answers.

The verse that He led me to was 1 Timothy 2:4, “[God] wants all mean to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” This verse was particularly encouraging because it counter-acted the logic that if God can, and God doesn’t, God must not want to. Now I had an absolute statement that said in no uncertain terms that God does want everyone to be saved.

That being said, I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it all. I kept running into the same roadblock – the contradiction that 1) God can (through controlling the items in our envelope), and yet 2) God doesn’t (because not everyone is saved). Luckily, God gave me peace of mind for several years, as I mentioned, and I was able to be content knowing that God loves all of us and wants us all to be saved.

But about a year ago, God delivered again, this time by giving me answers. Consider again the logic: if God can, and God doesn’t, God must not want to. We have already proven through 1 Timothy 2:4 that God does want everyone to be saved. Logically, then, one of the other two statements must be false.

Prepare yourself, because you’re about to think that I’m either crazy or committing blasphemy. The false statement is that God can. Yes, you read that right. I’m saying that God can’t. Keep reading, though, because I am by no means questioning the power of God.

Even God has limits. In this instance, God is limited by the method He has chosen to reveal Himself to the world. He has chosen us, sinful human beings who are made acceptable to God only by the blood of His Son, to be His Body in this world. Just as Jesus was God on Earth in flesh and blood, Christians with the Holy Spirit are God on Earth. However, unlike Jesus, we Christians sin. And what is the definition of sin if not “doing what God doesn’t want us to or not doing what God does want us to”? How can God carry out His wishes if His Body on Earth will not respond to His commands? God can’t because we won’t.

If God tells you to talk with someone else about Jesus and you don’t, then that is one item that should have been in that person’s envelope that isn’t. From there, the situation snowballs. Since you didn’t talk with that man about Jesus (a.k.a. God’s Body wouldn’t respond to His desires), that man may never accept Christ, which means the items he was supposed to put in other people’s envelopes will never arrive. Now God’s Body has been denied growth.

Once again, God can’t because we won’t. Following this train of logic, I have concluded that God gets each person as close to salvation as God’s Body will permit Him to. It has never been so clear to me how powerful sin is or how vitally important it is that we respond to all of God’s desires. It breaks my heart to know that I am basically a broken limb on God’s earthly Body. However, I am encouraged that God continues to work and that, armed with this new wisdom, I will move forward with new determination to make at least my part of God’s Body completely responsive to all of His desires.

This week's guest blogger is Josh Drianis from Sedalia, MO.  Thanks Josh!