Dear Ones,

Many years ago (several decades), Elder E. D. McCutcheon--known to most, if not all, of us as "Brother Mac"--from North Mississipppi recommended a book (one among several recommendations) to us. The title was The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, by Loraine Boettner. I didn't get very far in the book as it was deeply theological and, although I had embraced the doctrine of God's sovereignty, at that point in my life I hadn't gone far enough in my spiritual journey for its strong meat (though I think Travis read it). Since then, I hadn't thought of the book until I read Joni Eareckson Tada's essay in the book Indelible Ink (details below).

Since Joni Eareckson Tada is well known to most Americans, I will not go over in detail how she came to be so well-known, except to briefly recap that in the summer of 1967 she became a quadriplegic due to a diving accident. She had been raised in a Christian home, but came to a much deeper understanding of the Christian faith through her ordeals, . . . at least partly, by God's grace, through her choices and responses in the face of those ordeals. Some of that experience is related in the excerpts from the following essay that she wrote in response to a request to tell about books that have helped to shape her faith. The book she discusses here is Loraine Boettner's book, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination mentioned above.

A "sidebar" note: Joni's experience as related below underscores some lines from another book that I'm reading (Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues: Exploring the Spiritual Themes of The Lord of the Rings, by Mark Eddy Smith. IVP, Downers Grove, IL., 2002). In Chapter 1, Smith gives some background to LOTR and among his comments regarding "Simplicity" (title of Chap. 1) are these: "It is the nature of seeds to lie dormant as long as necessary. And once they have sprouted, they need time and careful tending in order to grow. Simple people can be maddeningly shortsighted and provincial, but the cost of gaining wisdom and perspective is often calamity. As Frodo says, contemplating his departure:
"I should like to save the Shire, if I could--though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too dull and stupid for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. . . . "
In another passage, Smith has this to say: "Strength is not created by adversity; it is merely awakened by it. . . . As Aragorn says at Elrond's Council, "If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be" (I:299).
Or as my former pastor, dear old Brother J. D. Shain use to say, "All this prosperity has ruined a lot of good faith . . . "

As to "influences" (in the JD "title" above): In the Introduction to Indelible Ink (the book containing Joni Eareckson Tada's essay), Larsen begins the Introduction by quoting John R. W. Stott (from Your Mind Matters): "The kind of food our minds devour will determine the kind of person we become". He goes on to begin his introduction with the following statements: "On any given day, that which we give our focus and energy to invariably plays an increasingly significant role in our personal and spiritual development. It grows in significance as individual actions and decisions lead to patterns, which then progress into comfortable habits. . . . we fix our focus and make decisions to the benefit--or to the detriment--of our spiritual development. . . ."
"F. W. Boreham said that once we make our decisions, our decisions turn around and make us. We can sometimes choose the influences that will affect us more deeply, though not always. Some, such as the larger cultural sphere, imbue every aspect of life, despite all attempts to shelter ourselves from them. Neither do we choose the family into which we are born. But our friends, our choice of job, and our reading material are areas where we practice autonomy. It is on the realm of reading that this book aims to focus, and is where we must consider Boreham's axiom. In this area we make decisions, and then our decisions, our choices, make us."
"Books shape us, dynamically molding our minds and souls. You are never the same person when you finish a book--even one that is read purely for escape or entertainment. A conviction may take root or deepen, the imagination may be sparked, a new perspective may dawn. A W. Tozer has aptly stated that "the things you read will fashion you by slowly conditioning your mind."

Considering the impact of the reading of books upon us, let us now turn to one Christian believer's experience of the reading of a book upon her life. Joni tells how a clearer understanding of the sovereignty of God strengthened and encouraged her through some very difficult days, and indeed, for the rest of her life.

From a lover of good books,
Elaine

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Excerpted from Indelible Ink: Prominent Christian Leaders Discuss the Books that Shape Their Faith, Scott Larsen General Editor. Waterbrook Press, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2003.
From Chapter 1, Joni Eareckson Tada, "Understanding God's Sovereignty".

Quote at heading of Chapter: "History in all its details, even the most minute, is but the unfolding of the eternal purposes of God. . . . " Loraine Boettner, The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination.

Joni begins her essay by recapping what led her to the point discussed in the following essay, about two years after the accident which rendered her paralyzed from the neck down. And then, . . .

* * * * *

"Predestined? My life encased in a numb and near-dead body? There it was again: God is sovereign. The idea that God could have prevented my accident, but didn't, hurt me deeply. The idea that He planned it appalled me. That He planned it for my good and His glory horrified me. Was He using some other dictionary than the human race uses? "At some point during those long months, during the peaceful afternoons of sitting in my wheelchair by the pasture that bordered our farmhouse, during a soft summer afternoon when the honeysuckle was sweet and fragrant, my anxious thoughts subsided like a late-evening breeze. My life hasn't stopped. I'm still here, and yes, I'm in a wheelchair, but I'm...still. "Be still, and know that I am God." Well, Lord, I'm pretty good at the "still" part; help me know who You are as my God, my Lord. I stopped asking why through clenched teeth and started asking why out of a searching heart.
"I asked a friend to help me understand God's sovereignty. Just how and to what extent is He in control? My friend was an energetic student of the Bible, and so, together, we dug deep into the Scriptures. He avoided giving me second-source material that was light and easy-to-read. Rather, he steered me next to the window of our farmhouse living room and plopped onto the music stand in front of me weighty books like Berkhof's Systematic Theology and Calvin's Institutes. Holding a mouth stick between my teeth I would turn the pages, absorbing everything I could. Institutes was too heavy, but I sensed I needed to grasp what Calvin was saying, so my friend replaced it with Loraine Boettner's The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination. It teetered on the edge of being too theological for my one-ounce pea brain, but after the first few chapters, I was hooked.
"Somewhere in its pages I realized I was reading something man-sized. Rather, God-sized. Perhaps it expressed the unspoken desire of my soul: to encounter towering biblical doctrine like the Himalayan peaks that rise to the the breathtaking height of Mount Everest. To apprehend a God who was much, much bigger than I ever imagined when I was on my feet. To delve into mysteries that were so enigmatic that they completely captured me. Somewhere into the fourth or fifth chapter of Boettner's no-holds-barred look at the goodness and the power of God, I realized that my suffering was the key to unlocking the hieroglyphics of God's foreordained will. I was about to embark on the adventure of my life. "The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination is purposely unlike most contemporary treatments of the sovereignty of God. It is arduous and often laborious reading. However, as I tackled each granite-hard sentence with my pickax of faith and deliberate curiosity, nuggets of gold began to reveal themselves.
"And the light and dazzling truth of God's sovereignty began to dawn. Perhaps the most profound concept I unearthed was the specific nature of the sovereignty of God. Through a grand cross-reference of complex verses, Boettner helped me appreciate that our God doesn't say, "Into each life a little rain must fall," and then aim a hose in earth's general direction to see who gets the wettest. Rather, He screens the trials that come to each of us--allowing only those that accomplish His good plan because He takes no joy in human agony. Nothing happens by accident...not even tragedy...not even sins committed against us. God is in control, not in a general way, but in a very specific way."

* * * * *

"These are deep waters: God decreeing but not necessarily doing? God exploiting but not smothering? How does He pull it off? Suddenly I realized I was part of the world of finite humans trying to comprehend an infinite God. What's clear is that God permits all sorts of things He doesn't approve of. He allows others to do what He would never do--He didn't steal Job's camels or entice Sabeans and Chaldeans to wreak havoc, yet He did not take His hand off the wheel for thirty seconds. This fact often does not sit well with people--as it once did not sit well for me when I was languishing in the hospital. But Boettner forced me to think of the alternative: Imagine a God who didn't deliberately permit the smallest details of my particular sorrow. What if my trials weren't screened by any divine plan? What if God insisted on a hands-off policy toward the tragedies swimming my way? Think what this would mean.
"The world would be worse, much worse, absolutely intolerable...for everyone...every second. Try to conceive of Lucifer unrestrained. Left to his own, the devil would make Jobs of us all. The Third Reich would have lasted forever . . . The only reason things aren't worse than they are is that God curbs evil. . . .
"I cannot begin to express the relief and release I felt as I plunged deeper into this marvelous truth that my diving accident was really no accident at all. Finally, long after I put down The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, I yielded. I submitted. I exhaled a long, slow, satisfied breath and relaxed into the sovereign arms of God. . . . "
"Nearly thirty-five years later--and after a couple of rereadings of Boettner's book--I come across countless numbers of people who, like me in that hospital so long ago, rail against the sovereignty of God. Maybe it's my paralysis that, like a magnet, draws out such statements. They break my heart. Such bravado, no matter how well meaning, is a hopeless mixture of truth and error. It's sad that we deny God's own words about Himself in our efforts to defend Him. He's the One who says without blushing, "Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both calamities and good things come?" (Lamentations 3:38).
"If God didn't control evil, then evil would come hurtling at us, completely uncontrolled . . . I, for one, am relieved that God clearly claims to the run the world--not "could" run it if He wanted to, or "can" step in when He has to--but does run it, all the time. Even when it sins. Even when we suffer. He claims that not the slightest thing touches us without first receiving His nod. All for the working out of His mysterious and wonderfully strange plan."

* * * * * "This joy can begin even now. And it just might start with a dusty old theology book by a man named Boettner.