Predestination or Free Will?

Dale · November 24, 2019, 11:08pm

I delight in God’s providence. Enslaved by it? Hardly.

Here’s an example of one that was just fun. My Co-instants Log entry for the date shown:

11/17/13 On my way east for church this morning, as I was coming up to Cabela’s on Highway 30, there was a very large wooden outbuilding being moved. It was wider than both of the two eastbound lanes, blocking them and the shoulder, and really crawling. I’m guessing it could not have been moving more than 1 or 2 miles an hour, 3 max. (And I am never early!)

But as the Lord of time and space would have it, the timing and spacing was such that, as I came up on it, after having to wait momentarily for someone ahead of me to turn into Cabela’s west entrance, I turned into the west entrance as well – then, driving east through their front parking lot, I exited out the east entrance, passing the building that was obstructing the highway as it was slowly moving along. I came out behind the county patrol car that was leading the slow-moving parade, but in front of the building being moved. Passing the patrol car, I went merrily on my way.

There were, of course, alternate, longer routes by several miles on county roads by turning around and going back, but it was just cool the way it happened.

The Sunday School lesson (David C Cook Adult Student Book Comprehensive Bible Study September-November 2013 Vol. 130, No.1) for that morning(!) was on Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. One statement was “The God of the Bible is not an abstract deity. He does not stand aloof from our lives uninvolved in them.” One of the questions (9.) was, “When has God been there to help you even before you knew he was there?”(!!)

Here is a map illustrating the location:

Here is a Google Maps Street View:

And here is a photo of a building being moved, not the actual building involved, but just one from online to give the approximate size for perspective, and for those who may not have known about buildings being moved:

Try and imagine all of the details that had to work together to set up that scenario – they would be myriad. That is how sovereign God is over instants and actions, and no one’s free will was violated. It may bend your mind, but that is the way it is and that is what scripture teaches.