God must interrupt you to save you
A few years ago, one of my favorite Wall Street Journal columnists, Kris Frieswick, wrote an article on how she’d reached the end of her rope with all the interruptions that constantly barged into her life.
Referring to her new Apple Watch as the “devil’s bracelet” because of how often it cut into her with disruptions, Frieswick describes how she hit rock bottom one day, writing: “You’re not the boss of me!” I yelled one afternoon when seven notifications popped up simultaneously. I turned away like a petulant teen.”
Anything like that happened to you? It has me.
As someone who’s spent a career in executive positions running software companies, each of my days was filled with out-of-the-blue phone calls, emails, text messages, (multiple) message-app pings, calendar reminders, and knocks on the office door. And that was just my professional life.
Add to that the same with family and personal life interactions, and it’s no wonder many of us have frazzled nerves.
We’re all very much like Frieswick in that we’ve gone increasingly from having and dealing with intrusions to resenting and rebelling against them. You have to admit that deep down, none of us likes anything telling us what to do.
Not surprisingly, the Bible concurs on that point and provides numerous mentions of God calling out to interrupt people’s lives for the better and being ignored.
God said to Israel: “I have spread out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in the way which is not good, following their own thoughts” (Is. 65:2). The writer of Proverbs says: “I called and you refused, I stretched out my hand and no one paid attention; and you neglected all my counsel and did not want my reproof” (Prov. 1:24–25). Jesus told the leaders of His day: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling” (Matt. 23:37).
Like Frieswick, all of us initially tell God when He calls, “You’re not the boss of me!”
Because that’s who we are inside, to save us from ourselves, and because He loves us, God has to bring about the most profound interruption of our lives to ensure we don’t spend eternity separated from Him.
God calling
So many of us think our salvation came about because, at some point, we finally decided to seek God, recognized our need for Him, and made the right choice. I used to think that.
But Scripture paints a much different picture of our innate spiritual condition. The fact is that you and I aren’t merely distracted people who need to pay more attention to our creator. The Bible says we’re spiritually dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1), unwilling to submit to His authority, and unable to rescue ourselves from our rebellion.
There’s a tiny but profound way Paul describes all of us when it comes to our born-that-way condition: he says we are all “helpless” (Rom. 5:6) when it comes to salvation. The Greek term he uses is very picturesque and paints a picture of someone suffering from a debilitating condition with no capacity to change their situation.
That’s you and me when it comes to doing anything about our lost spiritual state. No matter what we hear or are encouraged to do when it comes to changing our circumstances, as Jesus said, we are “unwilling.”
So, because we are a spiritual corpse, the Bible says God Himself, “being rich in mercy,” makes us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:4–5). The initiative belongs to God. The mercy belongs to God. The life we receive belongs to God.
Theologically speaking, what we receive from Him is oftentimes referred to as “effectual grace.” It’s called this because God always accomplishes His purpose and does not fail to save those He calls to Himself.
In the same way no physically dead person ever resisted Jesus’ command to live again, no fallen person resists God’s command to spiritually live.
The effectual call of God is part of what is sometimes referred to as the “golden chain of salvation” that Paul writes about in Romans: “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified” (Rom.8:29–30). All of the actions of God Paul describes — including His interrupting and effectual call — are carried out by Him alone for us.
The Westminster Confession of faith describes it like this:
“All those whom God has predestined unto life, and those only, He is pleased, in His appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by His Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them an heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by His almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ: yet so, as they come most freely, being made willing by His grace.”
The bottom line is He makes us willingly able to hear and choose Him, with the end result being He gets all the credit for our salvation. On that point, the Great Awakening theologian Jonathan Edwards says: “Those who have received salvation are to attribute it to sovereign grace alone, and to give all the praise to Him, who makes them to differ from others.”
So, while we may spend our lives resenting interruptions, insisting that no one is the boss of us, we need God to interrupt us to save us. The greatest and most needed disruption of all is the one we could never bring about ourselves: God breaking through our rebellion, giving life to our spiritually dead hearts, and making us willing to come to Christ.
It’s a mercy to be grateful for — and the only reason you’re saved at all.
Robin Schumacher is an accomplished software executive and Christian apologist who has written many articles, authored and contributed to several Christian books, appeared on nationally syndicated radio programs, and presented at apologetic events. He holds a BS in Business, Master's in Christian apologetics and a Ph.D. in New Testament. His latest book is, A Confident Faith: Winning people to Christ with the apologetics of the Apostle Paul.
