Dear Mom,

Lately I’ve been feeling the weight of being a dad with kids on the edge of leaving home. There’s excitement in watching them spread their wings, but also a quiet ache — a hundred questions about whether I’ve prepared them well, and the realization that so much of what comes next is out of my hands. It’s a strange mix of pride and helplessness that makes me think about how little control any of us really have over the future.

That’s probably why the doctrine of God’s sovereignty has become so precious to me. In a world full of uncertainty — raising children, aging parents, changing plans — it steadies me to know that our salvation doesn’t rest on shaky human choices but on God’s unshakable purpose.

John MacArthur explained in a sermon, “God did predestine those who were to believe before the world began — because that’s exactly what the Bible says.” I’ve come to see that truth not as something to argue over, but as a comfort to lean on: if God has set His love on us from before time, then we are held far more securely than we could ever hold ourselves.

That’s what I’d love to talk about in this letter — why God’s sovereign choosing isn’t cold or distant, but the very thing that lets us rest.

I know we both rejoice whenever someone professes faith in Jesus. But I’ve come to see that the way most preachers talk about that moment today — “It’s up to you, just decide now” — is not the way the church always spoke. Much of it comes from the 1800s, from a man you may not know named Charles Finney. He lived around the same time as Darby, and he changed the way American preachers thought about salvation. Finney taught that revivals could be manufactured with the right methods—anxious benches, altar calls, emotional appeals. He rejected the idea that salvation is a sovereign work of God’s Spirit. In his view, man has the natural ability to turn to God if, and whenever he decides.

Even if you’ve never heard Finney’s name, you’ve heard his teaching echoed by the evangelists who followed him — which is why so many today put the whole weight of salvation on you, in a moment of decision.

Around the same time, Methodist evangelist James Caughey urged seekers to “pray through” on the spot. These practices moved conversion toward a climactic prayer response. Later, D. L. Moody (and even later R. A. Torrey) systematized counseling after sermons, often ending with guided prayer—bringing us closer to what became the sinner’s prayer pattern.

In the early 1900’s, Billy Sunday helped normalize a short, scripted prayer at the end of an altar call. Billy Graham and Campus Crusade for Christ (Bill Bright) broadcast and printed the formula worldwide, cementing the practice across evangelicalism. Paul H. Chitwood’s dissertation argues the sinner’s prayer, as we know it, effectively originated in the early 20th century.

But the Bible paints a very different picture. Jesus said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me… No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:37, 44). Paul wrote that God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4), and that salvation “depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy” (Rom. 9:16). Our hope rests not in a fragile decision we make, but in God’s eternal choice — and our part is not deciding as if weighing options, but bowing to His call.

Mom, one of the things I’ve learned is that we don’t come to Jesus the way we might “decide” to join a club or pick a college. Scripture never describes salvation as a human-initiated decision; it describes it as Christ calling and us bowing in submission to that call. When the Lord calls, His sheep hear His voice and follow — not because they were clever enough to choose Him first, but because His call awakens them and draws them irresistibly. Our “yes” is real, but it’s the yes of a heart subdued by grace, not the vote of an independent judge weighing two equal options. That’s why the call is sure and inescapable, and our salvation rests on His summons, not on the fragility of our own resolve.

And this is where true assurance is found. If salvation begins with me, I can lose it. If it begins with God, He will finish it. As Paul said, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). Or, as Voddie Baucham and R.C. Sproul put it, “If we could lose our salvation, we would.”

This truth isn’t modern—it’s ancient. Augustine, writing in the 4th century, prayed to God: “Give what you command, and command what you will.” He knew that apart from God’s grace, we cannot obey or believe. But when God gives the grace, our will is moved to love Him.

Mom, that’s why my confidence rests not in my grip on Christ, but in His grip on me. I want us to talk about this, not to argue, but because I long for both of us to rest in the comfort of God’s sovereign grace.

With love,
Your son

Passages to read together:

• John 6:37, 44
• Ephesians 1:4–5
• Romans 9:16
• Philippians 1:6