Breakthrough

The following is a letter I sent to my nephew a couple weeks ago. It captured my thoughts so well that I chose to reproduce it here for everyone's benefit:


Josh, do you know what happened to me two weeks ago? I came home. I don't know how it happened, but I went on a very distant journey that left my soul in deprivation. I remember distinctly my gratitude, passion, hope, and confidence in 1996 when I meditated daily on Dad's sovereign grace. My email address at that time said it all calvinist5pt@juno.com  

But somehow I stopped meditating on His sovereign grace. I am sure that my environment contributed. Sovereign grace is no emphasis of the Vineyard. If during the last 13 years you asked me my theoretical doctrinal position, I would have responded that I was a Calvinist, but it had stopped being a live-giving truth and become a long undiscussed academic question. And then I came to China where thoughts of survival completely replaced meditations of sovereign grace.

About a month ago, my soul was in very, very bad shape. I said, "The message of the good news is not good news because it all still falls back on my meeting the condition of persevering faith, which I can no longer produce." I read the epistles over and over and wanted to believe that they offered something substantial in which to hope. But my eyes had become veiled to the effectuality of the redemption. Using imagery Piper used in sermon I listened to after the fact, my experience of salvation had become fragile because it depended upon my continuing to meet the condition of faith, and there was nothing in which to have faith since the message offered no good news. I am failing to capture it verbally, but it was basically a vicious cycle.

On a Sunday a brother Nathan discerned my frame and asked if I wanted to talk. He asked me to tell him the story of my conversion. Then he asked who was the initiator in the story. I responded "myself", and then he said that my answer showed that I was full of pride. Then out of no where, he started preaching sovereign grace to me. I do not know if you can probably grasp my shock: No one talks about sovereign grace here. I had not interacted with the concept in years. I mean, it was so removed from my consciousness that I had just responded that I was the initiator in my own conversion.

The HS used that conversation to ignite a spark in the darkness. But I could still only fumble around for several days since I did not even remember how to fan the spark. Using Milton Vincent, I preached to myself, but the spark kept dangerously fading and then reviving. I was in and out of the darkness of confusion for days. The next Friday night another brother Charlie spoke the words to equip me. He said that he listened to sermons almost every day. At first, I could not grasp what he was saying since I equated sermons with the epitome of boredom and could not imagine a situation where I would voluntarily subject myself to listening to a sermon except due to social pressure.

But the words stuck with me, and the next morning, I saw them for what they were: the means of grace to fan the spark. I listened to two hours of Piper and then worshiped with the CD you sent for another hour. I had a breakthrough. I could see hope again. I could see that it did not depend upon myself again. I could believe that the redemption was eternally and really efficacious. I could rejoice in the message again because I could see good news in it. It no longer was just a potential redemption whose actualization depended upon this broken man. The darkness lifted. I came home. I returned to my Reformation roots. I did not even know that I had left, but I am so glad to be home now.

I took the Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholic feeds out of my RSS reader. I don't need to scavange there since I am home again and there is abundant food here. I don't have to starve anymore. Praise Daddy.