This has been a very interesting thread to me. The predestination issue always seemed straight forward.
IMHO, Scripture is clear that we are saved by Grace through Faith and that even the faith we have is a product of Grace, but Grace that is freely available to "whosoever will". When we accept Christ, our faith grows or as Scripture says, in some cases a person believes for a time but when tempted falls away. Christ knows who will and won't accept as well as whether or not they will fall away. Scripture makes it clear, "whosoever will", therefore to me election means something different than Calvin thought it did and built his doctrine around.
Maybe people who enlisted in and served in the military see the question of predestination differently, but it's no problem at all if you've ever been the property of the USMC. Prior to enlisting, you're your own man, making your own decisions, including whether or not to enlist. Once you enlist and finish boot camp (i.e. do not fall away), though, you no longer belong to yourself except in the very limited sense that you can complain about what you will do because you have been ordered to do it. You will not refuse to do it. You will not decide when to do it. You will not decide how to do it. You are predestined to serve the purposes of the USMC and only their purposes with everything else in you life being shaped around the USMC.
It doesn't seem all that complicated to me, whosoever will may come and accept the gift of Salvation through Grace. Election relates to Christ having a plan to use those who do accept to best advantage once we have accepted. From the point of our irrevocable acceptance we are an integral part of Christ's plans from that point forward. Those who fall away may be used for a time, but they are not integrated into his plan the way a Que stick is integrated into a game of pool. Like those who never accept, they're bumpers, not pool balls or a Que the master uses to make a shot. By by definition, being incorporated into His plans as an instrument of His will rather than our own will is election. Until we accept Christ, we do not have the privilege being one of the tools He uses to bring others to the point that they accept His Grace.
I think the privilege of playing a role in His bringing as many as possible to Salvation from the time we irrevocably surrender to Him forward is what election relates to. I don't think it has anything to do with whether or not we accept His Grace. Once we accept and surrender to Him, though, we are predestined to be in the right places at the right times in spite of ourselves because we are no longer our own, but His.
it's no problem at all if you've ever been the property of the USMC.
But no one who is not moved by the Holy Spirit will seek to enlist in God's army. The carnal man believe all of the Bible is folly, and his nature will prevent his free will from enlisting. It requires the Spirit to act in us to believe. We are adopted and grafted (essentially drafted) in to God's army. Our movement in that direction appear to be of our own doing, because our nature is changed by the Spirit.