One of our movie rentals for the weekend was The Adjustment Bureau with Matt Damon. It was quite intriguing in a way that the men in suit following the subject around confused me as to what they were. Clearly, they were from another realm. In a Christian viewpoint, were they angels or demons? I know that demons can’t read our thoughts, they can only observe, throw and whisper suggestions to us. As for angels, they’re there to minister and help us in our time of need and not change the course of our thinking.
Those men actually had powers to make people trip and fall and change how people think. What are your thoughts on that and what’s your take on free will and destiny? If you think about it, these terms seem very paradoxical. When we speak of destiny, we are talking about fate, a fixed outcome. Free will is our ability to choose the course we take to get to our destiny. God gave us the free will to choose salvation or reject it. He did so for the fact that He created us not as puppets. God is not a tyrant as some arrogant people make Him out to be. To think of God in that way is clearly coming from someone who does not know God at an intimate level, simply put, godless. God already knew those who will choose Him and in this knowledge comes predestination.
Although our destiny is already predetermined by God since He knows the outcome of all things, we are still treading in paths unknown to us. We can predict, plan and calculate the outcome of what we choose to do but in so doing, we truly are meandering, which still entails choices, and choices exercising free will. In my own opinion and understanding, the term predestination only applies to God’s ultimate knowledge of what the outcome is of all the free choices that we make. God knows that we oftentimes always make bad choices yet to those who put their faith in Him, we have the blessed hope in Romans 8:28,
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
To exercise our free will, and do things in which we know is against God’s will, regardless, God’s will still stands to the end, only, we end up taking a detour or delay the execution of His ultimate will. It is my desire to choose God’s will for my life. I am not doing it out of God’s coercion but out of reverence. It is my choice. I hope that you in your own time, will choose the same.
[Image Credit: Google Search. Specials Thanks to the OP]