Are we really in control of our life choices?

[maurylight207]

God knows all, and knows our will, what will happen, even where we will go in eternity according to A.W Pink the writer of attributes of God. Even though we have brains, if God already knows our life, doesnt that mean that we really aren’t making our own decisions?

 

[PeaceBeWithU]

We all have free will, and God allows us to exercise that free will. We make decisions for ourselves. Just because the Lord knows ahead of time what we will choose does not make the choice any less our own.

A good example is the Lord telling Peter that he will deny Him three times before the cock crows.

Peter, of course, protests, saying he would never do such a thing.

Later, Peter is scared as people in the crowd begin to recognize him. In his own fear he denies knowing Jesus three times, just as the Lord said he would.

The Lord was not forcing Peter to do so. Peter did it of his own free will, because he was scared. The fact that Christ knew about it ahead of time did not change any aspect of how things unfolded. It was still Peter who chose to respond in that manner.

Does that help you?

 

[His_helpmeet]

We all have free will, and God allows us to exercise that free will. We make decisions for ourselves. Just because the Lord knows ahead of time what we will choose does not make the choice any less our own.

A good example is the Lord telling Peter that he will deny Him three times before the cock crows.

Peter, of course, protests, saying he would never do such a thing.

Later, Peter is scared as people in the crowd begin to recognize him. In his own fear he denies knowing Jesus three times, just as the Lord said he would.

The Lord was not forcing Peter to do so. Peter did it of his own free will, because he was scared. The fact that Christ knew about it ahead of time did not change any aspect of how things unfolded. It was still Peter who chose to respond in that manner.

Does that help you?

On top of that, God also knows what would have happened had we made alternative choices. For example, to continue with the Peter story, He knows what would have happened had Peter NOT denied Jesus. This is why God can judge us so justly - He is able to see the things ahead of us and the things that WOULD have been ahead had we taken different paths.

As an aside, because of this we can say that parallel universes do exist - but they exist only in the mind of God.

 

[Cricket2]

Yes we are in control. Sometimes it does not seem like it, but we are.

Now things can happen to us that are out of our control, like injury or illness, being laid-off from the job, or an accident. But what remains is our choices concerning how we react to these events. So, I might get sick enough to lose my job. But this may be the way God can open another door in my life I would not think of otherwise.

I can sit and pout, feel sorry for myself and get depressed. (Been there, done that.) But once I get over this phase of my reaction I can look at the other options now before me. I can then choose to look into a different career, learn how to do something different because I now have to use a wheel chair…etc.

It is not that we like these events, but we do have to make choices about them. We can learn from them or curl up and hide because of them. I sometimes think that the “crashes” in life occur because we are not paying attention to God and miss earlier signs of impending trouble. If we ignore the early warnings then we get sick, drive carelessly, mess up our job or land up being asked to do things we can’t do. Then the “doo doo” hits the fan and we have to deal with a harsher set of circumstances versus what we would have to deal with if we paid attention in the first place. Just me.