I recently received a letter in which the writer asked me some questions about my faith. As I wrote out my response I couldn't help thinking that what I was writing to a friend was something that others might wonder too. I also knew that my husband had more than a passing interest in the conversation, flowing through letters mailed back and forth, between my friend and I but his interest rarely holds to sitting long enough to hear my word for word answers, and even less rarely her word for word questions (or statements). So here I sit, with my written letter in hand, ready to mail it out but unable to do so because I feel the need to share bits of what I wrote here.
But first a bit of background information. This is a friend I have known for many years. When we first met I was still very much 'churchinized' as my husband puts it and I saw in Scripture the things I had been taught to see. That was the person my friend came to know and love. And as I write this I hope she will forgive me sharing her questions here because without her questions my answers will make little sense.
I was asked: "I thought back over the years of knowing you and some of our early talks...Then I was thinking of the phone call where you told me about your change in...belief. So, what made you, at that point, become 'elect' as you put it?
I must admit that her question is a very good one. I think if I did not understand regeneration and election as I do I might be asking the same question of someone that I had watched go from a free will believer to what I now believe.
And so I began my answer, not at the question but years ago when we first met. I shared much personal information that I won't go into here but I would like to summarize a small portion of that for just a moment. There was a time that I experienced something that left me begging the Lord for a break in my circumstances. It was one of those situations where the needed break was due to physical pain and every prayer for relief came when I reached the point that I could not stand the pain anymore. And everytime I asked the Lord for relief...relief was granted. The pain just vanished. Those breaks never lasted long but they lasted just long enough to let me regroup and rest before the pain returned. At this point my faith, though deeper than it had once been was still very much a 'church' taught kind of faith. I knew only what I had been taught through my years in Baptist and Pentecostal 'churches' and through growing up the great-granddaughter of a Baptist preacher.
And now I will switch to copying down the answer I gave my friend.
"Even then, though, I knew there was something off with the way I had been taught one attained salvation. Way back..."(years before) "...I questioned whether the salvation prayer attained one salvation. I couldn't see how it possibly could but I knew no other way. And so I prayed out my doubts, begging the Lord to save me, and I said the salvation prayer SO many times.
That was still my mindset when I..."(experienced the time of great pain)"...But I had no idea how hard..." (that pain) "...would be. I prayed all the way through..." (it).
"And for the first time in my life I saw immediate answer to prayer- to my prayers. When the pain would become too much I would pray-beg God-for a break from the pain. And like a miracle...(the pain) would stop. Just like that...and I would get...a reprieve....while I just rested. These breaks came without fail in answer to every prayed request...
And so I came out of...(that painful situation)...different than I went into it. Nothing I had ever been taught about the Bible, God, or Jesus explained what I had experienced. Still, life...kept me busy...there was little time to do more than think, remember those instantly answered prayers, and keep praying. I don't remember what I prayed in those days but gradually I began to seek for something...understanding, I guess, and I prayed for it too.
It was sometime...(later)...that I bought a book from a Mennonite company titled, 'The Kingdom that turned the world upside down'. That book taught me something I had never been told before-if you keep my commandments. It introduced me to the understanding that true Christianity wasn't just about a salvation prayer and going to 'church' on Sundays while living for the world.
Still, something was missing. I was missing something. I had this feeling there had to be more but where to find it? How to find it?
...I was seeking for answers, searching for-I guess the best way to say it is-more. More of Christ. More of what it meant to be a Christian. Searching for answers. It was like my soul knew there was more but my mind didn't know how to find it.
So I searched. I visited the Amish. Read their books. I searched out Mennonite communitities. Read their books. Researched different 'churches'. Visited a few. Learned the beliefs of different denomintations, talked to people from some of them. I'm sad to say that in all that searching my Bible reading was only sporadic. I was looking for 'real' Christians but I was also looking in the wrong places.
Somehow I guess I still studied enough Scripture to be learning from it.
And in all that searching and learning-although my Scripture learning was more along the lines of seeking out 'thou shalt nots' than anything else, even when those 'thou shalt nots' weren't even in Scripture.
I couldn't for the life of me figure out if Scripture required women to wear dresses or not so I eventually decided it didn't matter. If there was any chance it might require it I was going to do it. So I spent 6 months wearing dresses only. I value those memories but dresses got me no closer to Christ.
It was during that time I struggled over headcoverings. I never found my ansers on that back then either...
All of this was going on in my heart and mind during those early years of our friendship, some of it I shared with you, a lot of it I didn't.
The searching, my searching, even extended to which Bible was the 'right' Bible. I did talk to you about that. Back then I was reading an NIV Bible. I came to the conclusion it was a bad Bible. didn't like what I read about the ESV, and eventually settled on the KJV even though I didn't like the history of it.
Eventually, i got it in my head/heart that I needed to have read the entire Bible so I set out to do that. I set aside an hour every night for Bible reading. My only goal was to be able to say I had read the whole Bible and so I read, sometimes not even understanding what I was reading. I worked through Scripture like a checklist, checking off first chapters then whole books until I accomplished my goal. I read the entire Bible.
I picked up parts of Scripture I had been unaware of. I learned things but mostly I gained the ability to say I had read the entire Bible all the way through.
But I gained something else too, something i had no idea I gained. I gained the understanding that God is in control. I have read over some things I wrote back then. I see those references to this still unkown to me understanding of Scripture and God. Only that new knowledge was still pretty much swallowed up in all that I had been taught in 'church'.
...That was still quite some time before I met...(my husband)...but all of that was going on in me while I knew you. I only told you snippets of all that.
And so there I was, seeing things in Scripture but seeing them through the things I had been taught in 'church'.
It was into this that...(my husband)...walked.He never once told me 'Scripture says this'. At first we talked just a bit of this and that. Then he asked me to go read Ephesians 1 and tell him what I thought.
I'll be TOTALLY honest with you. I thought I was imagining things. I read Eph 1 over and over and over again. I didn't believe I could be seeing what I was seeing. Surely I was wrong. I read it in multiple Bible translations. I read the commentary in the only Study Bible I had, and NIV study Bible. I finally resigned myself that I was seeing what I thought I was seeing. I DID NOT want to tell...(my future husband)...what I saw but he was waiting for my answer. So I told him, explaining that I read it in multiple, that my study Bible confirmed what I read. I was certain he would think I was crazy.
Only he didn't think I was crazy. And so you see...(my husband)...didn't brainwash me into this "...belief" as you put it. I searched and prayed myself into it. I begged the Lord, sometimes on my knees, sometimes in tears, always with a desperate, seeking heart for it. ...(my husband)...kind of nudged me toward the one set of verses that were the catalist for making the scales, the blinders, fall from my eyes but he NEVER told me what Scripture said.
You asked, "what made you, at that point, become 'elect' as you put it?" Honestly, I don't know for ccertain when I would have become 'elect'. If you've read anything of my ealry blog posts, I wrote often of how my conversion came slowly, so slowly that I have no idea when it happened.
It was after I read Eph 1 that I could clearly see the verses that spoke of God's soveriegnty, his choosing His people, election, predestination, etc. but seeing the Truths in Scripture wasn't what made me elect. Somewhere along the way the Lord changed me, changed my heart. I know when the final changes happened but I don't know when the 'elect' as you put it happened.
I know for...(my husband)...it literally happened overnight. He went to bed crying out for the Lord to save him and he woke up changed the next morning. I know another man that went to bed hating God and woke up the next morning loving him, longing for Him.
But it's not always so instantaneous. I once heard a testimony of a woman I have never met. She was drawn so slowly that she had no idea when her conversion happened either.
For some there is that "boom" moment but for others it happens so gradually that, for me, at least, I can't pinpoint the exact moment. I could make a guess as to when it happened if I had to but it would be a guess."
I am going to end this post here even though there is more to the questions my friend asked and there is more of my response that I wish to share. Since the next question takes more of a general tone and less of a personal tone I will split my reply into two posts.
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