Predestination or Free Will?

Dale · November 22, 2019, 5:15am

@Angela275 A little story may help.

It may have been Einstein who said, “Coincidence is God’s way of staying anonymous.” Rightly put it is, “Coincidence is one of God’s ways of saying, ‘Here I AM!’” “Co-instants” and “co-instance(s)” are my substitute terms denoting “not a chance!”

I have been keeping a Co-instants Log for over three decades, with retrospective entries for two decades before that (I’m in my early geezerhood ), and it has a small multitude of entries. Some are fun, funny, startling, poignant or life-path changing, and there are a lot of them! Not all are easy but all are good.

Here is a sweet example, one among a boatload, of his sovereign, immanent, personal and interventionist activity into my life:

Request and Articulate Reply

A little background:

I leave earlier for church than Jeanne for a couple of different reasons, so she drives our pickup and I take the car, also for a couple of different reasons. (And neither of the latter are because of her driving ability. )

I back the truck out of the garage because Jeanne is a little intimidated doing it since the clearances are tight. (I have dinged the garage door opening’s aluminum trim with the passenger side rear view mirror.)

Also, the concrete apron to our garage is a little steeper than some, so ice on it can be a problem, especially if you are not in a vehicle but trying to walk on the ice. Jeanne also has a knee issue which makes walking on ice even more treacherous.

My Co-instants Log entry:

1/3/16 While chipping some ice and spreading some Ice Melt on the garage apron so Jeanne could safely get into the truck, I was a little disheartened about an issue a family member had at another church, and I was consciously thinking that I would like some encouragement. So, as I was on my way to Sunday School, I asked the Lord to give me a co-instance before I got there (there were about five minutes left), thinking “You could do that, Lord.” In Father’s timing, not mine (and he’s never in a hurry, but he’s never late – it was right after I got there, not before) and Mike, the teacher, had completely abandoned the Sunday School lesson from the quarterly – he had decided instead to ask the class to talk about… coincidence! Was I encouraged and a little pumped?!

(He has given me other co-instances after I have asked for them, but this is the most notable and the most recent, as of this writing. )