Why I am a Calvinist, pt 3
For a whole month I spent about four hours every day prayerfully reading through the Scriptures trying to defeat Calvinism. I started on March 26, 2005. I concluded my search on April 26, 2005. I considered many texts from the New Testament and the Old Testament. I considered topics outside the scope of soteriology into prayer and evangelism. I came to head knowledge of Calvinism being right. I felt very rebuked in this study because I was taking my mentors’ words over the Scripture. I avoided certain parts of the Bible because of my non-Calvinist stance.
About April 9th, I bought a brand new, red Chevy Cobalt (2005). I was so excited. I missed the manual Saturn I had but I had new car smell. I turned twenty-one during that time and got myself a sugar high. El Salvador came and played at SBU. May 14th, 2005 was the week of finals and the week that Episode III: Revenge of the Sith was to be released. I stayed home because I was very tired that Sunday night from working outside pushing carts at Sam’s Club. I got up and left about 10:00 am. I stopped and got some gasoline for the car. About ten miles down the road, 10:15 am, my phone rings and I look to see who is calling. The next thing I knew was that I was on the shoulder of the passing lane about to go around a corner and the shoulder was a big drop. Freaked out I tried to swerve back onto the road but lost control and spun around into the other lane and off the side of the road, rolling over, and landing on the wheels in a deep pit. I had been passing a semi and luckily he saw me and braked so he didn’t plow into my car and kill me. I had a bump on my forehead and I was missing my cell phone to call anyone.
Now this is horrific no doubt but what does this have to with my journey. Calvinism has a strong emphasis upon God ordaining things to happen. Well, let me see…that Friday I paid my insurance and the agent and I talked about how well the Cobalt had done in crash testing. My mother was supposed to go into he salon and do some work. She was going to follow me into town because I have to drive through Jefferson City to go to Bolivar and that’s where her salon was located. But my aunt was to come and see the house we had just built the summer before. So instead of going to her salon, a phone number I didn’t know and would not have been able to call as it was in my cell and it was unaccounted for, she stayed home to clean more. I was followed by a Southern Boone County emergency worker who stopped and checked on me, so did the trucker too. He let me use his phone to call home. My dad at the very moment I crashed remembered that he needed to go out to his truck and charge his phone. If that had not happened, mom would not have been able to get a hold of him because she didn’t have his office number and I couldn’t think to get his card out of my wallet.
You might call that providence and be right. However, I could see God behind this crash and I did something I had never done in my life up to that point. I rejoiced! I praised God that he saved my life and that I could still breath and see my little sister! Up until I really studied Calvinism, I was a non-Calvinist who was very works oriented. I thought that I could lose my salvation and that I could upset God and do something to revoke it. But when I had studied these doctrines I knew that God was not upset with me.
This wasn’t an act of Satan but an act of God to really see if I believed what I thought. He did this to link my heart and my mind. I was certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that God is sovereign to cause that crash to drive me to him. I did not need to question him. Everything in Scripture came to a new life that I had never seen before!
That next October I was given ten questions for a Calvinist to answer. I took them on to see if I really believed them. But as I studied to answer the questions, I became even more certain of its doctrinal truthfulness. Since the decision to become a Calvinist, my relationship with God has become strengthened. My studies are deeper and fuller because I don’t shy from any text. Nothing is off limits too me, yes even the genealogies. My prayers are more personal and more captivating. I can see God’s goodness in any circumstance. God is bigger than I had originally thought. He is more majestic than I had ever been led to believe by anyone, even my mentors.
Father, I thank you for you soveriegnty and for your glory. Father I thank you that you saved me from my sin that had earned nothing from you but hatred and condemnation. God I thank you that you revealed youself to me in the Scriptures and that in the Bible you have given me all I will and can possibly ever need to know! Thank you, Father, for Jesus Christ. Apart from I am nothing. God I thank you that you have set your love upon me from eternity past and sought me out as a husband does his bride, a father his child. I thank you that you sacrificed Jesus for my sin that I may know you. I thank you that you raised him from the dead and gave me the hope of eternal life. Your glory is all that I live for. I live to share it with others for your glory is the cross and the empty tomb, Father. I pray that you will use me to save souls this day. I go out in the confidence of your soveriegnty and purpose to take the gospel message to the world and see the results you would have to bring. I love Yahweh, Jehovah. I love Jesus of Nazareth who is the Christ. I love you Holy Spirit who has sealed me and gifted me with the gift to preach the word. Bless all who would read this site and these posts to know you more fully. It is in the holy and sacred name of Jesus I pray. Amen!
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