Free Will

I know that some have an issue with something. That is, sovereign will of God vs. free will. Now to explain those terms for anyone who is not overly familiar with them.

The sovereign will of God refers to the fact that God has everything planned out. That everything has been preset as it were. He has plan A, period. There is no plan B. There is no subsection 172-F to handle what you did or did not do last week (and really, isn't it pretty arrogant to think that we, as mere human beings, can change God's plans?). Now there is a great freedom in that knowledge for those who choose to follow Him. Since He already has things preplanned and knows what is going to happen in our lives before we even do, there is no failing Him. Failing Him would mean that He had false expectations of what we could or could not do. Like in school for instance: if you had a physics exam and your teacher expected you to be capable of getting at least 60% and you instead, got 20%. In that instance, you have failed because more was expected of you than you were capable of giving. But in matters of one's walk with God, that false expectation does not exist. He knows when He asks you do something whether or not you will do it or not so you cannot fail. It is we, as people, who see things as failings.

Okay, so God has it all laid out for us. What about free will? That is, the fact that I can choose to go left or right, go or stay, start or stop, etc. If God has everything planned out, with no alternative plan of action required, how does free will factor into that? Almost seems contradictory, but it isn't.

There are two things to take into account:

1)God knows our hearts far better than we do. Things that we do not even realize are there, whether good or bad, He already knows all about all of it. He knows, what we will do in any given situation on any given day far more so than we do. If it were not the case, then whether believer or not, no one would ever have a regret about something they felt they should have done or not done.

2) Time. Time is for us. Frankly, we cannot, with our own limited understanding, understand things without it. For example, try to actually fathom eternal. Think as far in the future as you can, then think further ahead, and again, again. Now at the same time, think back as far as you can, and again, and again, etc. Do not forget to think about right here right now in this moment in time at the same exact time. Eternal is hard to fathom. So we have time. God is eternal. He does not need time, we do. (Although God's plan does appear to be event driven - when this happens then this will occur, etc).

Now something with time. We live time going forward. We cannot go backwards, only forwards. But is that how God has written out history? Did He start out writing it "In the beginning" and just playing it by ear from there? No. God is beyond time remember. We may live history forward, but He has written it in reverse. Writing the end result first then working back to the beginning He wanted.

Now think about that for a moment. If you were to write a novel and there was a place where you knew you wanted it to end at, would it not be easier to write backwards? You could have your characters make and choose decisions that would result in completely unexpected directions but that would all tie in together to reach the pre-written end of the book.

Writing forward would mean you would have to try and desperately meld things together in some sensible way to hopefully reach your goal without losing direction in the mix.

This brings us to free will within the sovereign plan of God Almighty.

Let us say that you go for a walk one day, and happen across the scene of a house fire. And let us also say that there is, within this house, a person trapped within. What do you do?

Most of us would like to say we would throw caution to the wind, run inside, and rescue the person or die trying. But the truth is, many would not run inside, would they.

Now let us say that in God's plan, He needs you to run in and rescue that person. But it is your choice right? But, as mentioned previously, He knows you better than you do. So what does He do?

God knows what circumstances and events would have to take place in your daily life to lead you to a place where you would, in fact, forget all fear and rescue that trapped person. And since He did not write your place in history front to back, but rather, back to front, He can easily put those things in place where you would use your own free will to choose to lead you in the direction needed for you to be in that selfless place He needs you to be in. Keep in mind, He knows what you will do with 100% accuracy in any, and all, situations in your life. While most of us would like to think we know with that same accuracy, in truth, at best we are probably around 50 or 60% for the most part.

So take a few minutes and digest all that. It may take a minute or two but when you get your mind around it, it is pretty easy to see how God uses our free will as part of His sovereign will. We do choose, but He knows what our choices will be every single time, without fail, so it easy for Him to place events in such a way as have us be where, and who, He wants us to be perfectly within His own perfect plan.

There you go, we do have free will but God is (thankfully) completely and totally in control - always.

Jeremiah 10:23 "..I know that people’s lives are not their own; it is not for them to direct their steps."