Does God 'Draw' People to Faith?

Here is a snippet of an email response I received from my pastor within the past two weeks - one that made me wrestle anew with whether God is the one who draws people to Himself. In my mind, the question boils down to, 'do we as individuals, play any role in coming to faith in the God of the Universe?' Anyway:

"Why is it that some do not believe today, even in the face of tremendous evidence that Christ has been raised? Jesus said that no one can come to him unless the Father draws them (John 6:44). You see while the door is narrow and thrown wide open to all who would believe, believing continues to be a matter of God's sovereign work in the world. [...] We must be drawn by the Father to the narrow door of Jesus. The children of God are not born of human decision, but born of God (John 1:13). This is truly good news, because it means that God is saving us, and we are in no way saving ourselves (John 5:21, NASB)."

I'm not quoting my pastor as a means of taking him down; by no means, I have the utmost respect and admiration for my pastor. I do disagree on some level, but I want to make sure I faithfully represent the opposing viewpoint and he articulates it well. Here are the verses he referenced:

John 6:44 reads, "No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day."

Fiction and Theater

At this point in America, national politics is complete fiction and theater. Just yesterday, we had two perfect examples of this. The first was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) breathlessly claiming on social media that she had a near-death experience during the Capitol Hill riot on January 6th. She then brings up, for the first time ever, that she was sexually assaulted earlier in life and that this event on Jan. 6th compounded trauma on trauma. It is sad that this even needs to be said, but of course I am not doubting her story of prior sexual assault or in any way normalizing that experience. My point in bringing it up is that she is clearly using it, in this particular moment, as a means of silencing anyone who might question her narrative on those Jan. 6th events. She knows the culture and the cultural hot-buttons of the moment. She could have brought this up and literally any other moment over the past several years - in fact, it's surprising that she didn't given the fervor of the recent 'Me Too' movement. Why she wouldn't have wanted to add her voice to that movement is actually somewhat baffling, given the profile of her position. I digress. The reality is, she wasn't in the Capitol building that day. She was in another building that was uninvolved with the protestors and rioters. A police officer came to her door and her building was briefly evacuated, but that's it. There were never any rioters in her building. In her telling of the events, they were in the building and she was hiding in her office...none of that actually happened. The only person who entered her office was a capitol police officer, there to escort her to another building. In her telling of the events, all she does is trash the cop.

What God Has Joined Together...

"Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate." - Matthew 19:6 and Mark 10:9

This blog post started because I had this verse running through my head for several days. I sought the help of others in brainstorming the list below and I'm grateful for their counsel!

Everyone has heard this verse before - likely at a wedding. The context for the verse itself is marriage. The Pharisees are questioning Jesus about whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife and this is part of Jesus' response. With that being said, while the verse clearly applies to marriage, it seems possible that Jesus is stating a broader principle here. If you think about the context of what marriage is (an institution God himself created), and the way the metaphor is used throughout Scripture to describe the relationship between God and His People (covenant), it doesn't feel like a stretch to say that this verse can be applied to many things. By that I mean - there are many things that God has joined together, and my natural questions are a) what are those things and b) what have 'we' tried to separate?

Husband/Wife - no need to dig further here

Love/Obedience

Disobedience/Wrath

The Gospel/The Kingdom of God

Repentance/Forgiveness/Faith?

His People/Messiah Jesus