Dear Mike,

I recently came upon your website. I have been searching the internet with fervor for over a year now after leaving a WCG splinter group. My husband and I pretty much spent our whole lives in the WCG/ Splinters until finally getting out last year. What a relief and a blessing! We both knew there were serious problems with their teachings, but it took awhile to figure out we need to get out. Now we are trying to learn the real truth!
I have come across several good websites. I am now convinced beyond doubt in universal salvation. Other things I am still trying to learn. One of those is the concept that God has already planned everything out… everything. Now, on one hand that makes perfect sense to me. He is God after all, and can do anything. There is also a certain comfort in the thought that everything that happens to you is determined by God and is meant for your good.
The problem is, I’ve not been able to get my mind wrapped around the idea completely. Some doubts still linger. I’ve read some of the articles/ letters on the website that dealt with this very issue and have learned much, but problems still remain for me. For instance, I just read a letter by someone who wanted to commit suicide (“Could suicides be in the first resurrection”, I think was the title). In your response you told him the impossibility of escaping what we have to go through. That if we didn’t face it now, we would face it later. But then, you agreed with the writer of the letter that God has already determined what would happen. That’s where I get lost. If it has already been decided, then why try to convince someone not to do it… whether it be suicide or something else?
I think of all the “mistakes” I have made in my life. I can see good fruits from many of them, but some of them seemed to mean nothing. For instance, I once started a job where I didn’t even last a whole shift because I could see it just wasn’t for me. Why would God predetermine that I do something like that? Another example, at one point in life I was convinced that women had to wear actual head coverings, so I bought one. I used it for about two weeks when I prayed before I figured out it wasn’t necessary. It cost $25 that could have been put to better use. What was the point to that? I know WE can’t presume to know what God is thinking in these circumstances. I’m just trying to say that nothing seemed to have been learned in these situations, so what was the point? I could have learned that head coverings were not necessary without buying one. God knew that job wasn’t for me, so why let me go to all the trouble interviewing, filling out paper work, etc. just to orient to the job for 5 hours and then leave?
I can see why people think that we have some free will. It’s easier to accept that we make mistakes than it is to try to figure out why God would seemingly waste our time and money. These are small situations that I used as examples, but I hope you can see what I mean. The suicide situation, on the other hand is a big thing and hits close to home. I have been severely depressed at times in my life and seriously considered suicide. My husband’s brother did kill himself. It’s hard to accept that suicide could be God’s answer to someone’s life, but I won’t presume to think I know God’s way of thinking. Why tempt someone with suicide via an evil spirit if you don’t want the person to do it though?
It’s like being ill. Why go to the doctor if God has determined you will or will not die from something? Why live a healthy lifestyle if God already determined how you will die? I’m just having trouble with this whole concept. Can you help me understand?
Another letter I read talked about how the writer had trouble praying. I have had the same problem because I keep thinking that if something is already determined then why pray about it. It feels like a sense of hopelessness and futility or something. You answered that well from what I saw by skimming the answer but will study it in detail in a bit. It is comforting to see that others are having the same thoughts and problems that I am with these issues though.
I look forward to hearing from you, and thank you for all the work that has gone into this website.

Yours,
M____

Hi M____,

Thank you for your questions and your patience in getting an answer.
It is quite common for people who have come out of some splinter group of the WWCG to be sent by our Lord to iswasandwillbe. com. A large faction of those who come to our Bible Conferences are people from the WWCG just like you and Sandi and me.
I pray you will be granted to learn what you call here “the real Truth”.
You say you are struggling with the concept of God’s complete sovereignty:

“Other things I am still trying to learn. One of those is the concept that God has already planned everything out.. everything. Now, on one hand that makes perfect sense to me. He is God after all, and can do anything. There is also a certain comfort in the thought that everything that happens to you is determined by God and is meant for your good.”

You go on to tell me that you had read a letter I had answered concerning the subject of suicide.
The answer to your question concerning that subject is very simple:

Jas 4:13 Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain:
Jas 4:14  Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Jas 4:15  For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

“If the Lord will, we shall live” means we do not know what the Lord has willed for tomorrow, but whatever He has willed is what will be. It does not mean that the Lord doesn’t know. He does know simply because he is the author of every day of our life, ‘before any of those days ever were.’ But since we don’t know, we have to act on our convictions.

Psa 139:16  Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance; And in thy book they were all written, Even the days that were ordained for me, When as yet there was none of them.  (ASV)

That is an incredible and comforting Truth for all who are given the faith to accept those words. But it does not mean that since God already knows that therefore we too, already know.
In other words, when we “go into such and such a city” we need to pray to God that our efforts are prosperous and to His glory, and never be so foolish as to think that our plans and thoughts are our own. They never are. Our every thought is given to us by the author of our book. Of course it does not seem that way to the natural man. As you said, it is hard for us to even begin to understand why God would have us to buy a $25 head covering, just to learn that your hair is a sufficient outward indication to the world that you are striving to please God by submitting to your husband.

1Co 11:3  But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
1Co 11:4  Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.
1Co 11:5  But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.
1Co 11:6  For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.
Eph 5:31  For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.
Eph 5:32  This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.
Eph 5:33  Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.

So that $25 was not wasted at all. It was used to teach you that our outwardly visible lives should reflect what is within our hearts. Your hair makes you appear feminine and should be a demonstration of your submission to your husband, not a $25 head covering.
But even the mistaken thought that you needed a head covering was of the Lord:

Pro 16:1  The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

When our minds are preparing to formulate a thought, they are doing so under the direction and influence of the cause of all things:

Pro 16:4  The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

What does the very next verse tell us of any one who thinks otherwise?

Pro 16:5  Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.

So we are given an evil experience for the express purpose of humbling us.

Ecc 1:13 I applied my heart to inquiring and exploring by wisdom concerning all that is done under the heavens:  it is an experience of evil Elohim has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it. (CLV)

So our actions which seem so meaningless and unnecessary, often serve simply to humble our abominable pride in our false sense of being independent from the influence of our Creator over our every move and thought.
Joseph’s brothers just knew that the idea of selling Joseph into Egypt was theirs and theirs alone. It certainly seemed that way to all of them. But was that the truth of the matter?

Gen 45:4  And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5  And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6  For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and there are yet five years, in which there shall be neither plowing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7  And God sent me before you to preserve you a remnant in the earth, and to save you alive by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

Does Joseph deny that his brothers sold him into Egypt? No, he acknowledges that very fact. But then he tells them why they did so:

Gen 45:8  So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt.

I used to wonder why, if Joseph knew that to be the case, did he torment them as he did? It was then that I began to understand that Joseph’s brothers are the symbol of each of us as we do what they did. As such they are the symbol of each of us as we are made to give an accounting for the deeds done in these clay vessels we call sinful flesh.

Rom 14:12  So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.

There is a world of difference between “giving account” and ‘being accountable’. Joseph’s brothers were neither responsible nor accountable for selling Joseph into Egypt. Nevertheless they still had to be humbled, and that was accomplished by causing them to “give an accounting” of what they had been caused to do. Read the paper entitled After The Counsel of His Own Will in the Essential Reading section at the upper left side of the home page for an in depth study of this subject of God’s total sovereignty over all things both good and evil.
Your next question concerned the lack of desire to pray, since you have become aware of the fact that God has every thing already planned out.

Another letter I read talked about how the writer had trouble praying. I have had the same problem because I keep thinking that if something is already determined then why pray about it. It feels like a sense of hopelessness and futility or something. You answered that well from what I saw by skimming the answer but will study it in detail in a bit. It is comforting to see that others are having the same thoughts and problems that I am with these issues though.

You are exactly right. We all have this very same response when we first become aware of the fact that our heavenly Father is so powerful that he is working all things after the counsel of His own will. But in time we come to see that even our prayers are a part of His sovereign work. We all become complacent, or think of life and our part in life as futile since God is sovereign. But God it is not even a challenge for God to bring us out of such an immature mindset. He has the power to raise up tremendous storms in our lives which bring us “to our wits end”. Under those circumstances our desperate prayers seem anything but futile.

Mar 4:36  And when they had sent away the multitude, they took him even as he was in the ship. And there were also with him other little ships.
Mar 4:37  And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.
Mar 4:38  And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?
Mar 4:39  And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
Mar 4:40  And he said unto them, Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?

Who brought that storm? Who was working this whole story? This is how God works in all of our lives.

Psa 107:21  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!
Psa 107:22  And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
Psa 107:23  They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters;
Psa 107:24  These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.
Psa 107:25  For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof.
Psa 107:26  They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble.
Psa 107:27  They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits’ end.
Psa 107:28  Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses.
Psa 107:29  He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.
Psa 107:30  Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Psa 107:31  Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!

“They are at their wits’ end… then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble…” So don’t worry about this temporary state of feeling that your prayers are futile because God is sovereign. God will soon enough command a storm in your life. He will bring you “to your wits’ end… then you will cry to the Lord in your trouble” and dispense with this childish idea that prayer is futile. Then, and only “then He will bring you out of your distresses”.
I hope this all helps you to see that God really is “working all things after the counsel of His own will”, and that this sovereign Truth includes our “effectual fervent prayers” for His deliverance from these “bodies of death” (Jas 5:16, Rom 7:24).
Your brother in the service of our sovereign heavenly Father.

Mike