Let's start here. Quite a few of us seem to have been born with the so-called "self-fulfilling-prophecy." In lay language, we were destined to be a star, strange, gifted, wrong side of the tracks, and the list goes on. I still remember in great detail a teacher who said to me in front of my classmates, "Bressler, you are stupid and I don't know why you continue to come to class."

Imagine being so humiliated. The fact was that I had some learning problems – not really diagnosed until the 1960s – and I figured she might be right. Try learning in a math class or some foreign language class when you have dyslexia, an over-active right brain and a large dose of ADHD. Had it not been for a stint in the U.S. Navy – which allowed for a lot of sacrifice, self-discipline and personal hard work – I might have been a victim of that teacher's self-fulfilling prophecy.

While I was a pastor in Sarasota, Florida, a family called and asked if I would visit their son, Tony. Tony was in prison at the time. I remember asking him, "Tony, why are you here?"

He told me he liked to steal cars – very nice cars – and drive them 100 miles an hour on the interstate highway. I said to Tony, "That's not what I meant. Why are you here?"

He looked at me for a bit and then bowed his head and answered, "I was always told that if I keep doing what I am doing, I will end up in prison. My folks have said to me more than once that I was always a difficult child, just like my uncle, and was simply born as a mean, uncontrollable kid and destined for trouble. I guess they were right."

I found out later that Tony's mom was abusive and his father lived with the inability to control his drinking and was diagnosed as an alcoholic.

Let me add: Tony had a wonderful turnaround and ended up teaching at a local college.

To continue, here's some information about determinism. That's a theory or doctrine that tells us that acts of the will, occurrences in nature or social or psychological phenomena are unavoidable. Hang in there, because I believe that self-fulfilling prophecy and determinism are closely related to predestination, which I do not accept. I'll rephrase that. I do believe that God put me here on this earth to live my life in a productive and good way, and that I will someday stand before Him as He evaluates my history and pronounces my fate. I do not believe that before I was born, I was predestined to be a loser, failure or unworthy of salvation.

The great question, "Are our lives so determined that all we do, have done or will do is nothing more than a pre-planned agenda and a cosmic joke? If so, then old John Calvin, with his supralapsarianism (look it up), was right.

"Some of us will go to heaven and some will go to hell, most of us, in fact. God already made that choice long before we were born."

Calvin believed that everyone deserves hell, but if God chooses about 20 percent – probably closer to 5 or six percent – to escape His wrath, that is His business.

I believe in Providence. By that, I mean, I may not be a super athlete, great mathematician or have excessive charm – I am too humble to be arrogant – so I'll just accept what I have and won't dwell on what I don't have. Some doors are open to us and other doors are plain old closed. This wonderful God has give us so many doors that open into worlds we can only imagine. Does that mean we'll always make the best choices? Nope, but that is what makes life so wonderful, exciting, marvelous and challenging.

There are plenty of doors yet to be opened. What will that mean for us? Why not try that one and maybe that other one, too?

Thanks, God, for giving us Your love. What a blessing!