A Few Weeks Ago

I was talking to a friend about predestination. I know what my views are on the subject, however I don't feel like I can fully wrap my head around it. If God truly wants to save everyone, why do some people never accept Jesus? If the Holy Spirit comes to everyone, how can we deny it? 2 Peter 3:9 says, The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance."God seems genuinely sincere about saving everyone, but not everyone comes to repentance. To the Calvinists really have it right with their 'double predestination?' Why would God allow anyone to fall away when he did all the work to die for them? But God did not say all reach repentance, just that He desires so.This is where free will comes in. We can chose to deny Christ and His works. We have the power to reject the free gift of grace won for us. But do we have absolute free will? Can we chose both good and evil and chose to take up our cross for Jesus? This is where I seem to differ on most of my friends on the subject. I have the desire for good but not the capacity. I have the will but not the means. Why is this? I inhabit a fallen body. I have limitations within me so that I cannot please God on my own. Paul puts it best in Romans 7 when he says, and I paraphrase, "The good I want to do, I don't do, but the bad stuff I don't want to do, is what I do!" Oh wretched man that I am! I cannot choose good because I have sin infused in me. 1 Corinthians 13 says that no one can come to Jesus and call Him Lord except in the Holy Spirit. Again I ask "Who will save me from this body of death?!"
I don't think anyone has not been in Paul's shoes as he shares his frustration in his epistle to the Romans. If he ended this with this question, we would be in a lot of trouble! But he doesn't end with "who will save me from this body of death?" He answers, "Thanks be to God, though Jesus Christ our Lord!" We are made alive in Christ, so it is not our sin that lives in us, it is Jesus.
But this still leaves the question of what we do or what we do to save ourselves. How can we reject but not accept? How can we sin but not please God? An analogy was told to me by a pastor once. Even though all analogies break down at some point, this I think is a pretty good view of it.

We are in a sea of unbelief. Anyone that enters this sea is dead, for it is a sea of sin. We are all in the sea, therefore we are all dead. What can a dead person do to save themselves? Nothing. Not far away, Jesus is at the shore, where there is salvation. Jesus can call us and invite us to join Him. But what is the problem? Jesus could grab a lifesaver and throw it to us, but what is the problem? Jesus could even get in a boat, row out to us, come right next to us and reach out his hand to us, saying "Come with me, child, I will save you." But what is the problem? We are dead. We cannot move, not even to grab the outstretch arm of our savior. If that was all Jesus would do, no one would be saved. But He doesn't do this. Instead, He grabs, brings us into the boat, resuscitates us, and brings us back to life. He then rows the boat back to shore. Can we say that we come 50% and Jesus comes 50%? Can we even say that we come 1%? No. Jesus comes 100%, and it is the only way it could work, for He is the only blameless lamb that could have possibly atoned for my sins. I know that if the ball was in my court, even for a moment, I would mess it up. Certainly once I am alive in the boat I can choose to jump back out into the waters of sin and death. I have that choice, and it is the only choice that I can make. If I choose to jump out, the Holy Spirit will still grab me and put me back in the boat. He wants me to stay with Him to the shores of salvation. So I have died to sin and been saved from this body of death through the saving grace of Christ. Thanks be to God!