Predestination-Settled
God sees potential in us and chooses us before birth, like Michelangelo saw an angel in marble.
A woman hearing a preacher speak on predestination said, "Ah, I have long settled that point; for if God had not chosen me before I was born, I am sure He would have seen nothing to have chosen me for afterwards!" The Concealed Angel It is related that Michelangelo, the famous Italian sculptor, painter, and poet, once stood before a great block of marble that had been rejected by builders and cast aside. As he stood there with eyes staring straight at the marble, a friend approached and asked what he was looking at. "An angel," came the reply. He saw what the mallet, the chisel, and patient skill could do with that rejected stone. He set to work and produced one of his masterpieces. Likewise, God sees possibilities in us. The World's Ignorance The richest man in the world, Croesus, once asked the wisest man in the world, Thales, "What is God?" The philosopher requested a day in which to deliberate, and then for another, and then for another, and another-and at length confessed that he was not able to answer. The longer he deliberated, the more difficult it was for him to frame an answer. The fiery Tertullian, the early Church Father, eagerly seized upon this incident and said it was an example of the world's ignorance of God outside of Christ. "There," he exclaimed, "is the wisest man in the world, and he cannot tell you who God is. But the most ignorant mechanic among the Christians knows God and is able to make Him known unto others." If God is to be revealed at all, He has to reveal Himself, and He has done so through Jesus Christ.