WHEN THE LORD LED ME outside the camp—away from the noise of a busy life, which included my church—many of the things I had learned and accepted by the scholars of my faith in Jesus were brought into question.
Today, I am reticent to blindly accept anything I learned in church as truth. This includes the doctrine of free will.
It was only when I was at that place where choosing the way I wanted to go—albeit without sin—was proven to be futile, and to try again would only prolong the time and suffering found in a desert experience.
It was as if God had me in a vice grip and to escape would only leave me with the promise of a proverbial two-by-four whacked against my head, where again I would be instructed to be still and know that God is in control of my life.
It became apparent to me that the only free will I have is to choose against God’s will, something I learned to be impossible.
Free will appears to be one of life’s mysteries and somewhat of an illusion. When I am faced with a decision, the choice I make is an expression of my desire and best thinking; and to say that I have free will implies no one is twisting my arm to make the choice I make.
However, the choice I make ends up being a consequence since my desire is to always gain or, at the very least, not lose by the choice I make. Which does not always happen.
I would need much more control over my circumstances than I, or anyone has, to believe it is free will and not simply desire.
If the Lord tells me through his Spirit and Word to wait for him, implying that I can trust him to provide for and protect me from the dragon or giant ahead, I have the choice to wait or not. As a reasonable person, it is not my will to wait and trust the promises of God in the land of dragons and giants, for fear of the consequences.
If I lose my house because I did not try one more time to find work to pay the mortgage, my choice will be a painful and humiliating consequence.
However, the choice to not wait is also a painful and humiliating consequence. My so-called free will is my best guess about which way leads to the future I so desperately want to control. But who, other than God knows the future?
If I had known more than seven years ago that I would not receive another paycheck until the Lord provided the means, but that I would also not lose my house nor miss a meal, I would have gladly avoided the pain and misery that comes with fighting against God’s will for me to wait.
As a result I learned humility and witnessed the work of an amazing God who proved himself good for his promises.
I have come to believe that my free will to choose is wrapped in a contaminated and very limited amount of information. The very notion that I have free will at the same time that I profess to follow Jesus is a contradiction of beliefs.
It appears that the day the Lord asked for my life and I desired to give it to him, I no longer had the right to choose the way in which I would go. It appears that from that day forward all my choices, even those that led me away from my favorite sins, were his will for my life and not my own.
Additionally, it also appears that every choice I made before I met Jesus was not made of my free will either, but by the will of an all-knowing God who arranged the events of my life to bring me to the knowledge that I needed him and my life indeed mattered to him.
It’s almost comical, but I learned this lesson at the hands of my parents when I was a child. The fact that I had no free will was taught through a belt to my backside every time I chose against their will.
The question that remains is a matter not of my free will, but of my desire.
It is a strong desire to save myself, the root cause for every decision made, whether it be to brush my teeth, go to the gym or look like a sane person whose hair is on fire while she sits and writes and marvels at the amazing patience and power of a God who is able to provide exceedingly abundantly above all that I ask or think.
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” John 6:63-67 (ESV)
Proverbs 16:9,Genesis 2:16-17,Proverbs 21:1,Psalms 105:25,Ephesians 1:11,Acts 26:9-18,Galatians 5:13,John 1:1-3
As always, it is my intent and hope that my words may encourage you wherever you are in your journey.
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If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.–Jesus (Mark 4:23)
