Salvation with Fear and Trembling

       I think I was five when my dad called me up to his office. This was my third trip up there over four weeks. Every time it was the same. This time was a little different though. This time I decided to give in. I don't know why it took me four trips, but I decided it was time I got saved.  I clearly remember sitting in my booster seat on the way to Sunday school thinking how I didn't want to be saved. Because if I were to be saved, I truly believed that I would have to be crucified with Christ on a cross. I didn't know much about crucifixion at the age of five except the pictures branded in my head of a guy pegged up on some wood with his arms splayed out. I knew it wasn't a pleasant sort of thing and definitely not something I wanted to go through. 

       But I remember sitting in my parents old bedroom/office at the farm house. My brothers were down watching TV. My dad asked me if I knew that I sinned. I said yes. He asked me if I wanted to be saved from that sin and it's consequences. I said yes. He had me repeat after him a little prayer. I don't remember much about it. But I do remember hearing my mom come through the kitchen door with the groceries. I remember running down the stairs to tell her I had been saved, and then quickly joining my brothers back in front of the tv. 

       It's not much of a conversion. It pisses me off that this was how I came to be 'initiated' into my faith. It wasn't a self-searching journey for truth. It was a cheesy 5 cent prayer that meant nothing. And now I will always be questioning what really happened that day. Did I get saved? Was I chosen of God that fateful afternoon? I was pushed into something, robbed of any chance to be lead into it later. There was no time given for self realization. What does a five year old know about the world? 

       This past year more than ever I've struggled with the doctrine of election. It's a stupid argument. I was tired of discussing it even before I entered my 11th grade year. It seems that election is a controversial horse that never dies, no matter how redundant or boring the debates become. But yet I still find myself bringing it up again and again. I'm preparing you now for an approaching storm of mass confusion. These are random thoughts not entirely cohesive, but they're important. My thoughts go something like this: 

       If I am saved, then God doesn't 'reveal' Himself in the way I expect Him to. He doesn't reveal Himself to me in the way other Christian's experience Him. So maybe this is just how it is between Him and I. Blank. Like a brick wall. It's always been this way ever since... ever really. This is why I'm so angry at my conversion, and that that unique opportunity was taken from me at such an early age. I can't ever know if it was real or not.  I want to be able to struggle through my salvation with 'fear and trembling'. I want a conversion like Martin Luther. I want to know. I want to be able to look back and say definitively: "There has been a change". But that can't happen. I've never been anything different than 'saved'. But then again, if God's absent presence in my life is a tip off to being unsaved, then He's really not listening to me. I've pray over and over again to see His presence, to see Him work in all areas of my life, to take everything I am, and to be with me. But it's never changed. I've tried but it never changes anything. 

       Eventually a thought slipped into my head. Maybe complete election is the correct interpretation. Maybe God seriously sits up in heaven saying, 'Jill, you're going to join me up here some day. Sorry, Jen, you just don't make the cut'. It dawned on me that if this was true, then there was nothing I could do about it. I was stuck with no way out. Even though this was very depressing, it was very strangely freeing. I could do whatever I wanted because nothing would ever change. God had rejected me. 

       Part of a recent chat with a theology major:

Me: "but (in salvation) I think personal responsibility takes more prevalence than God' choice."

Theology Guy: "if that is true then it is really our fault and not God's."

Me: "I'm totally fine with us consciously condemning ourselves to hell. But if God chooses who's to be saved and whose not to be saved, then he could have 'rejected' me. And I have no hope of salvation no matter how hard i try, how many times I pray, how much I look for God."

Theology Guy: "yep, that is what you deserve. He was just really nice to have you be saved. He is a very nice guy because you should be going to hell." After laughing for a second before being overwhelmingly pissed I responded back: 

"What if he hasn't saved me?? That makes NO sense. Look at these Christian families with 16 kids all saved before the age of 6. The odds of God saving all of them is ridiculous. Because they're all 'saved' prooves that wrong. c'mon now that's like saying God has a preference for conservative christian linages."

       Not to mention, it's not very often that people walk around saying, "I believe in Christianity, and not only Christianity but ultra-calvinism. The only reason I don't practice is because God's already condemned me to hell. If you must know, he didn't like my attitude." There are no people who believe in election except the elect. Well... and me for a little while. 

       So... where am I at now? I'm not a universalist. I believe people must take responsibility for their actions. I also believe that ever single person's sin is already completely atoned for by Christ's death on the cross. EVERY SINGLE PERSON. The only difference between someone going to heaven or someone going to hell is simply whether the person is doing their best to search for God, living an honest life, and through faith being the best person they can be. I believe our salvation resembles more of Moses and Abraham's conversion than Billy Graham 'say a prayer and escape the flames' theology. I think it's more of a life style than a prayer. Too long I was waiting for that zap from heaven, the white light to come down and absorb me. I've resigned myself to the fact it will never happen, and I'm completely fine with that. I don't need it anymore.