Hi
@Tong2020,
I will give you a short testimony.
I had read a book on how to write that gave the advice that when you write, there is a demon or a stag on your shoulder and that you sometimes cooperate with it and at other times struggle against it to produce what's called "voice" in your writing.
I used the techniques in the book to write a gruesome poem as an assignment for my Creative Writing class in the 11th grade. And the students applauded; and the teacher praised the work saying that the rhyming was like icing on the cake and that if he had not seen me in the process fo writing it, he would have thought that I had plagiarized it from Edgar Allen Poe or some other such author.
I went home that night and was tempted to sell my soul to the devil.
But I remembered that at the church that I had attended in the 7th grade, the verse had been quoted, that "
What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and yet forfeits his soul?"
But I couldn't sit on the fence any longer; so I said to the Lord, "God, I don't know if You're real; but I'm going to start reading Your word and doing what it says; and I know that if You're real, You will reveal Yourself to me."
He didn't wait to reveal Himself to me. He came over me in waves of liquid love; joy unspeakable and full of glory and a peace that surpasses all understanding. I think that I may have been in heaven for about four minutes; but my eyes were blinded to the realities of sight there. But I feel that i was face-to-face with Jesus; and told Him, "I have to go back and tell people about this love!" After a short conversation, I was returned to earth.
There is a sense in which God did all of that.
However, I know that there was always the possibility that I might not have responded as I did. What if I had sold my soul to the devil? That is a choice that I believe I could have made; but of course the Lord wouldn't allow it. He gave to me as a gift my experience of hearing a message at a church four years earlier.
I know that there have been people who did sell their souls to the devil. Why was I spared? I suppose that it was predestination. In 1 Corinthians 15 it says that we may of chance be wheat (compare to the parable of the wheat and the tares). And in Ecclesiastes it is written that time and chance happen to everything.
I do believe that I made the choice not to sell my soul to the devil. That it was influenced by my experience is not in question.
I always considered that I had made a choice to reach out to God. Of course the holy scriptures are clear in teaching that He chose me first (John 15:16). And I know that from God's perspective of dwelling in eternity, I could not have made any other choice; because God saw me making that choice from eternity past, eternity present, and eternity future. But from my perspective of existing in time, the choice was before me as I contemplated what decision I was going to make.
Hope this helps.