Who really understands the Christian doctrine of predestination?
I was still wrestling with the doctrine when a company outing took me to Malacca in April 2018. On the wall of the Stadthuys, near the entrance, was this plaque of white marble, set there in 1850 to mark a visit by the Governor-General of British India.
Carved into it was my name. Not a similar name. My given name, character for character, written in white stone more than 130 years before I was born.
Out of curiosity, I had searched for my name combination long before the trip. Real people with that exact combination were not easy to find. Each name is common on its own, so most of the results were people who had one or the other. Some were not people at all.
On the bus ride to Malacca, I had settled the terms on which I would believe: evidence of something in my own life arranged at least twenty years in advance, something neither chance nor any choice of mine could explain. Not proof for anyone else, only what would satisfy my own need for confirmation.
Shortly after, I was standing in front of the plaque. I had asked for twenty years. The stone had been set more than 130 years before I was born. Coincidence, someone will say, but the timing argues otherwise.
A difficult verse in Revelation makes a promise:
To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.
—Revelation 2:17 (ESV)
I knew the verse, but for seven years I read the stone in Malacca only one way, as proof that God had known me before I existed. It bore no new name, only the name I was born with. I sensed the stone’s significance but could not see how the promise applied to me, or what conquering would cost.
Understanding finally came on September 21, 2025, two days after a hard conversation with my pastor, which left me alone in a calling I was certain of. I went to the service expecting nothing. Halfway through the sermon, he turned to Andrew, the disciple who brought his brother Peter to Jesus.
He did not know that Andrew was part of my name. The name I was born with was the new name.
The promise in Revelation 2:17 is still being kept.
The whole story is in my book, Spirit and Truth: Third Reformation, available now: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLLJ39JK
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025. The ESV text may not be quoted in any publication made available to the public by a Creative Commons license. The ESV may not be translated in whole or in part into any other language. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
