The reluctant Calvinist.

So, I'm a firm believer in the doctrines of grace. But my header says that I'm reluctant about it. I thought I'd briefly explain why, because it's really simple.

It's called pride. I found it really hard to believe that my salvation didn't rest on me. I was fine that it was mostly God's work, but I really wanted to have a little bit of it on me (the deciding portion, ultimately) because I couldn't see another way to be motivated to live the Christian life.

Let's be candid, the Christian walk is not an easy one. I always laugh when an atheist suggests it's my crutch, and I point out that it's not normal practice for the crutch to hold you up and also smack you over the head repeatedly and painfully, which is often what my faith does to me.

There was a time when I, quite unconsciously, believed that I had to be good enough to be saved. Now, I wouldn't have phrased it like that. I knew that no-one is 'good enough'. But I felt you had to be at least trying to be good. If that wasn't the deciding factor, I reasoned, then how would I motivate myself on this difficult walk?

The irony is that, at the time, I wasn't actually applying the scriptures to my life in any tangible way anyway. I looked and acted pretty much like any worldling, with the main difference being that I went to a lively church and 'prophesied' (Lord, have mercy!) in womens prayer meetings.

When I came across the teaching that salvation is all of God, and none of me, it sounded like some cultic teaching. But slowly, over the years, I began to see it in the scriptures. Didn't want to - I bristled every time - but I couldn't escape it.

I recall sitting on my bed one afternoon and suddenly, crushingly, becoming aware that if I died, I wouldn't dare face the Lord God with any of my works. I would want to hide myself entirely, and there would be no way to do that. It was then that it hit me sledge-hammer hard. I threw myself on His mercy and gratefully clung to the great work Christ did on the cross. What other possible hope did I have?

I began to truly love the cross, and the Lord who died and rose again for me. The utter relief of knowing that it had all been finished on that cross, so many years before, was wonderful. I read Pilgrims Progress around then for the first time, and the passage where Christian's burden falls from him remains my favourite, because I can still feel that weight falling off me.

I didn't have to wonder what would motivate me on my walk now. Sheer gratefulness propelled me at first, and the more I looked into the scriptures, the more I wanted to conform my life to His ways, free from the burden to 'at least be trying to be good'.

That's not to say it has become easy to be a Christian, of course not. It grates against my flesh daily. But it's the precious freedom I feel now, the knowledge that truly, nothing can pluck me from His hands and that sin cannot ultimately defeat me that holds me up, even when life wears me down.

I don't sound so reluctant now, and it's true, as life goes on, I find myself less and less reluctant about the truth that those 5 points are a shorthand for. But I didn't come willingly, and I hope that, if you're reading this and wouldn't come willingly either, you might be able to see something new today.