I think these are two distinct and separate questions. If so, then I have two answers.

WHEN DOES OUR WALK WITH GOD BEGIN?
1. I think our walk with God begins at the point that we accept God. I think that God is involved in our lives prior to that, but a 'walk with God' involves both parties; you and God. So it begins when both are brought together.

DOES GOD HAVE IT PLANNED WHEN WE ACCEPT HIM?
2. I think the second question is much more fascinating to me. And I think begs another question which must be answered first, prior to answering the second…which is:

Does God plan everything in our lives or did God just spin the world/universe/everything into existence and then let man have Free Will?

Did God plan your life far in advance, choose everything you’re going to do/will do/will not do, and so, in effect, ‘plans’ whether you do something or not? (I am not a Presbyterian, but I believe this is a ‘predetermination’ concept, which their denomination in known for. Is anyone out there in that church? Can you clarify?)

Or, conversely, did God give us Free Will to make whatever decisions we will make, send Christ (and the other prophets of the OT) to teach us what to do, and now it’s up to us to choose to follow God’s word or not?

For brevity (and so I will finally shut up and just answer the dang question), let’s set an assumption first, that God is involved and ‘plans’ things as I think you are suggesting.

If that part is true, that God is involved and plans things in your life, then it also follows that he planned when you accept him. Just as he planned when I would reject him 30 years ago. If we accept that God plans anything at all in our lives, I think we accept that he plans everything.

I think my reasoning is a bit circular, but does that really surprise anyone? Hell, its Friday night…what can I tell you?

YBIC, BK

Man, I love this question!!! I wish truly I had an answer LOL. I can only speak from my own life. This is not something I have studied in the Word yet. I do believe that God worked in my life in HUGE ways BEFORE I was saved! I once led an extremely violent life (no I wasn't a gangster) and there were a few times a gun didn't fire when it should have.....I have no doubt it was God keeping me alive. There was a period of time I was passed to live in yet another home after my mom died. I was 13. I was in an extremely abusive home....God literally talked to me, kept me sane in what I was experiencing...so was God working in my life at that time? I believe yes He was. I have heard through many people God being supernaturally present before someone was saved.

I believe He kept me until I was able to accept Him. I very much see a very direct intervention in my path from God himself......I believe though He allowed my path to be tough, I believe He was in war over me and very much kept me within His hands....


Have you ever read Piercing the Darkness or This Present Darkness? I love those books because the reader see's the spiritual side of things happening to bring one to Christ....

I cannot see any other way except God moved my life to be in a position to accept Him.....

Did I answer the question? LOL

Blessings,

ConnieJ

@conniejay AWESOME-AWESOME-AWESOME!!! I have no other words except awesome

Thank you Dino! It is amazing.

Great responses you guys! "When does our walk with God start?" You could define our walk with God as the point where we accept him into our hearts, that is when we start walking with him. That is a valid response. I agree.

However, the past couple of weeks I've been working on something that has made me go back to some significant events in my life when I was atheist and I have jumped back a few times from what I now see. He was walking with me. Looking back, the signs are clear, he was always there.

Amen Jsb, Amen.

It's great to see intelligent discussion! You have no idea how much I missed it... Personally I have come to believe that God's work is constant in every person's life. From my own personal faith story, I knew God and had a relationship with Him before I gave my life to Him. I have a feeling that's not that uncommon of a story for many Believers.

And I look at the lives of those around me who haven't made a commitment to God and yet I see His activity swirling around them, prompting them towards Himself. And I can see their struggle with God, trying to figure out what it is that they believe on some level. That's a journey they're on with God, whether they finally choose to follow Him or not.

As for predestination... wow, what a loaded theological question! Paul mentions it enough times for us to have the debate over what it actually means and it's implications in our decision to follow after God. 2 Peter 3:9 says that God wants all to come to know Him and have ever lasting life, so there's the conflict. Would God predestine some to never know Him if He indeed desires differently? Or is it when Paul says "what God foreknew He predestined" saying that God's foknowledge is synomous with predestination? Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 2, and Ephesians 1 are all where Paul's words on Predestination are found. In all of them Paul seems to speak of God knowing before hand whom would accept and therefore laying out our future "adoption" into the Kingdom of God and other elements of our spiritual walk with God.

I don't think God chooses every action I take - if He did I'd be a much better person. Not to mention the many times in which He gives me the choice as to what I want to do, whether it's the close I picked out this morning or the second B.A. degree I chose to earn in college. (Though He did pick the first for me.)

Fun Side Note:
By the late 1800s most Christians in Europe and North America held to extreme views of predestination and therefore believed that missions was pointless. It wasn't until William Carey began the modern missions movement in the late 19th century that a new school of thought emerged stating that well, God may have predestined us to know Him but He also still called us to tell others about Him.

Wow, the answer to this really depends on your theological branch. I can see people with reformed theology starting at how He knit you in the womb. I can also see evangelicals emphasizing the moment of their personal acceptance. You all have great insights and witnesses to the power of God in your own lives.

I like to look at this from God's perspective. He doesn't inhabit our chronological time; He is eternal. He's got the past, present, future all in a nutshell that He created. So, I'll venture to say that at His kairotic moment of Alpha & Omega, your walk with Him started, was lived out, and ended in judgement. By giving His Son, his plan was for everyone to accept Him. By giving us free will, He knew who His believing remnant were who would. "When" only comes into question when you start talking about us created beings and our perception of time.

This question is really the question of salvation. The study of salvation , soteriology, is just one branch of theology you get to study in seminary. My personal theology all centers in eschatology- or how everything ends up. It's the study of the last things & what lasts. So, any theology question you ask me starts with Jesus' Second Coming.

Chaplainnik - very interesting. so do you understand the beginning through the lense of what will be in the end?