“Does someone need the Holy Spirit working in them before they can come to faith?” Of course, I said. “Well how does the Holy Spirit choose who to work in, if not by his own will and pleasure?”
I came to faith in the summer of 2010. While I had been exposed to Christianity by my parents growing up, by high school I had rejected the faith of my parents and was resolved to have nothing to do with organized religion ever again. But just a year after college, God used several events and relationships in my life to bring me to himself.
For two years I hungered after any theology book I could get my hands on: Lewis, Tozer, Fee, and Keller were the four food groups of my theological diet. I devoured apologetics with the intention of “tearing down every stronghold” I encountered. For all of my reading and studying, there was one place – a dark place – I had been told never to go. Stay clear of Calvinism, I was told by church leaders. I was led to believe Calvinism was a cold, stiff, non-evangelistic, and uncompassionate theological system.
But on that night in 2012, talking to a pastor from a small Baptist church about the work of the Holy Spirit, I became a Calvinist. We were on a mission trip together and I had been trying to debate him all week. But everything changed for me that night. With what little understanding I had, I embraced Calvinism, not knowing all that would mean for me and how my understanding of the Bible – and all of life – was about to change.
I went home and immediately ordered the book Chosen by God by R.C. Sproul. I now felt equipped to debate and challenge all of my friends to become Calvinists too. I soon became eager to criticize and debate others about theology whenever I could. I loved to be right. I constantly criticized “the Church” for being too weak in her theology. I rarely believed I was wrong. I had ascended to the heights of an all-knowing Calvinist, and there was nothing that could get in my way.
It was official. I had become young, restless, and reformed.