I think I understand but must ask one silly question: Is then life more like a dream, where we just go along with predestination and what God created before earth existed?
I wouldn't think so. We really are free agents, but somehow everything that will occur was decreed to happen. God's interaction with our willful choices are real, but our choice and his respond were suppose to occur. It is mind-boggling to be sure. I can only understand it to a point before it is beyond my finite brain to comprehend.
Well, another aspect of this is our salvation (which is the concern for these doctrines). Because we are so utterly corrupt by nature, election is the only hope of salvation. If he didn't elect some individuals in Christ, no one would be saved. His eternal decree includes his own personal working in the hearts and minds of fallen men to bring them to reconciliation to himself through Jesus. He ordained that Adam would plunge man to fall, then progressively work out history to prepare for the arrival of his Son, who then would die on earth for the sinners that he already personally knew beforehand (foreknow), such as you and me, that after you were born he would draw you to hear the gospel by a particular minister, that his Spirit would operate in your heart and mind to understand, desire, and believe the gospel, that you would be justified by faith, that he would indwell in you by sealing you and sanctifying you to be conformed to the image of Jesus, that he would continue to keep you persevering in faith until you die, resurrect, and are glorified with the saints.
Your whole salvation was predestined to occur, everything that brought you to faith and that keeps you going in faith is God working in you, because you were already foreknown (not just foreseen). He loved you before you were even born, before the world was founded, before Adam was created, you were already in his heart and mind, you were destined to be with him in his kingdom forever. It was an eternal love set on you in Christ, and he predestined all the means and the work to bring you to himself out of the effects of the fall. Even though you consciously made the choice to come to Christ, it was God who brought you to faith by his saving grace.
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,
even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight
making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.
"In him we have obtained an inheritance,
having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him,
were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guaranteed of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory." - Ephesians 1:3-14
God saw nothing
about you,
in you, or
from you for why he chose you. You were a child of wrath like the rest of mankind. God's pure grace and mercy is the reason he saved you and chose you. You have nothing to boast about, because God saw nothing in you for why he decided to work salvation in you for his glory. He simply did it
because he wanted to.
"What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses,
'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.'
So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.
"You will say to me then, 'Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?' But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, 'Why have you made me like this?'
Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience
vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for
vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?" - Romans 9:14-24