Undone: A story of prevenience

Undone:  A story of prevenience June 3, 2016 This last week I read an article in the magazine Christianity Today that brought me to tears. The article, by Nicole Cliffe, was titled "How God Messed Up My Happy Atheist Life".  Nicole writes "I became a Christian on July 7, 2015, after a very pleasant adult life of firm atheism." Her conversion came as the result of God moving toward her (we call this "prevenience", God initiating) in some completely unexpected ways. She writes, "I was surfing the Internet and came across John Ortberg's CT (Christianity Today) obituary for philosopher Dallas Willard.  John's daughters are dear friends, and I have always had a wonderful relationship with their parents, who struck me as sweetly deluded in their evangelical faith, so I clicked on the article. A few minutes into reading the piece, I burst into tears.  Later that day, I burst into tears again.  And the next day.  While brushing my teeth, while falling asleep, while in the shower, while feeding my kids, I would burst into tears." Later in the article, she writes that after she believed in God "...I read books that I would have laughed at before the cracking, and the stars lined up and there was God, and then I knew, and then I said it out loud to a third party, and then I giggled." She goes on, "This is why apologetics, in my opinion are hugely unconvincing.  (Dallas Willard, for the record, never debated unbelievers.)   No one could have in a billion years of their gripping testimony or by showing me a radiant life of good deeds or through song or even the most beautiful of books brought me to Christ.  I had to be tapped on the shoulder.  I had to be taken to a place where books about God were something I could experience without distance. It was alchemical." So, what does this have to do with us in the LK10 Community?  Well, part of our calling is to share with the Church this message of God's prevenience.  That is, that He is always at work before we show up, He is always initiating.  Even (especially?) in the process of conversion.  Our job is not so much to "make things happen".  Rather, it is to become skilled "attention payers". Very freeing. Changes everything.  Brings me to tears. To read more about prevenience, go here. To read all of Nicole's story, click on the picture below.

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