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I found this post somewhat funny on account of the fact that John is actually a comedian, not a Calvinist. Like duh, those words aren’t even spelled the same! I was also thinking, thank God, because most Calvinists are like these really hostile bearded guys on the internet, all hyped up on red bull and testosterone. I want to send them all out to the garage to tend to their micro brews. Like, don’t even come back into the house until you’re fit for human companionship….

That said however, there is quite a bit of tulip tripping going on within me. I suspect I have always been a bit of a tulip tripper, it was predetermined long before I was born. Also, I really like saying things like, “tripping amid the tulips” because it tends to  annoy all the Calvinists. They don’t be tripping, ever.

If you’re going to fall in love with a reformer however, I have to suggest Martin Luther. A little known bit of trivia about him, he wrote the most amazing love letters! Also, he actually calls his wife Lord! Now that will really tick off a Calvinist.

I actually met the Lord when I was 3 yrs old next to a compost pile wearing a pink checkered dress and picking on a scab on my leg. That day is still more real to me than yesterday was. I can’t even explain it properly but a close encounter with the Lord is simply, “more real” than what we presently call “reality.”

So, having such experiences as a child amid atheists is most inconvenient. It created a lot of questions like, “why me?” Why am I seeing something they cannot? It created a lot of emotional issues too like, why would the Lord save me, but not my family? I lost a brother. I watched my sister waste away. I was mad at God, I was mad about things like, if God is sovereign then why does he allow bad things to happen to the people I love?

I had questions like, if the people around me have freewill, then why don’t they just do the logical thing and choose common sense? Wait, do stupid people even have free will? How much freewill does someone with mental health issues and addictions even have? Can we even consent to a relationship with the Lord when we can’t even seem to consent to actually feeding ourselves?

How much of our relationship with the Lord is in our own hands and how much is in His? That’s a profoundly challenging question in a world where we kind of just shop for our preferred brand of faith. Are you a Christian because you are so smart you reasoned your way to the Lord and “chose” Him?

In that “choosing,” did you even think to ask Him if He was consenting to the relationship? That’s a scary thought by the way, but I mean it in the sense that we so seldom even consider that God might have some say in the matter, too. I’m not suggesting He would reject anyone who turned to Him, I am just saying we kind of completely ignore God’s authority, relieve Him of His own autonomy even.

So I spent nearly a half a century trying to rescue people, my parents, my siblings,my friends, trying to get faith into their hands. Like, if you only understood how good God was, you’d want Him too! I realize you can’t see Him, you seem really blind, but it’s okay, I’ll just describe Him to you. Then there was frustration over false teachings, like, if you only understood what the gospel is really saying! Finally I got to, it’s okay, I’ll just love you as you are. Surely my love will save you….

It did not. In the end I just got all beat up. I was a train wreck of co-dependancy, frustrated by people who seemed hell-bent on just destroying themselves. I couldn’t blame them, I couldn’t blame God, so I just blamed myself until I finally broke and just had it out with God.

I sometimes still quip, listen up people, I once marched right up to the Emperor Over the Sea Himself, and set Him straight. It is now quite unlikely I am going to be overly concerned about losing your favor.

So I was really blessed by some of the ideas to be found within Calvinism. Not everybody has these kinds of questions, these kind of emotional issues, but I certainly did and it was a great relief discover others had wrestled with these issues too.

I can’t quite be a Calvinist on account of the fact that I really don’t want to grow a beard and start brewing beer in the garage. But one doesn’t actually need to be a Calvinist in order to get a feel for some of these ideas. They are actually in the bible, Calvinism just elaborated on some of them in a way that can help people to understand.

Or not. I mean, take what you can use and spit out the bones.

2 Timothy 1:9 begins to touch on these issues around sovereignty, determination, and how we are called. “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began…” And Romans 8:29, “For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Myself, I really like 1 Corinthians 2:7, “No, we speak of the mysterious and hidden wisdom of God, which He destined for our glory before time began.”

God had always told me, you really need to learn how to trust in the Divine mystery of it  all. I am forever asking for the specs, every last one of them.

John says,  “Calvinism makes God the puppet master. We dance on His strings.” Yes John, we kind of do. We dance on His strings. Rather then being mindless puppets however, we are actually much-loved children. I think of my own kids sometimes, they definitely had freewill and probably far too much freedom, but in spite of that they still, “danced on my strings.” If I hadn’t had that kind of authority over them, I could have just left them in the grocery store the first time they acted up. God didn’t save us because of our good choices and our obedience,  or because we are very cute, He says, “while we were still sinners, Christ died for you.”

Grace is a mysterious thing indeed. It sometimes distresses people. The thing is, God can’t love you anymore…. or any less than He does right at this very moment. He is steadfast and unchanging, we are the ones who are trapped behind the glass darkly.

Pre-determinism doesn’t erase our freewill, it simply declares that God is more determind-er than we are. And He is! CS Lewis once wrote, He is good, but Aslan is not a safe lion.

 

abandoned ancient antique architecture

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