I have had some people ask me how does one reconcile the seemingly conflicting views that God has a plan for us while we, as people, have free will and can choose to do whatever it is we want to do with our lives.
When it comes to faith related issues, there are many questions that we could spend a considerable amount of time exploring such as: why do bad things happen to good people, why is there war, why is there sickness…? However, in the instant case, there does seem to be a considerable conflict between the two ideas in question.
First, how do we really know that God does have a plan for us?
Jeremiah 29:11 gives us this insight: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Now this sounds like a really good plan and one that I want to be a part of. But is this plan one that will be carried out by God and unfold before us without us having to do anything? Do we just sit back and wait for good things to happen for us?
Even though God wants great things for us, it is up to us to take the first steps to realizing the benefits of his plan. God may give us an initial push in the right direction but after that we are free to choose our own course. It is up to us to live up to our side of the plan.
What is our side of the plan? What does God want from us and how does He want us to act?
There are many areas of the bible that we can look to and see how God wants us to hold up our side of His plan but one of the more pointed areas is in Micah 6:8 where we are told: He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.
God has given us His ten commandments which basically tell us to lead a morally pure life. He has asked us to take care of our fellow man and keep Him foremost in our lives.
Even though God has asked these things of us, God does not control every aspect of our lives. We do have free will and we have the ability to exercise that free will. With that ability, when we chose to exercise our free will, we must also live with the consequences even if those consequences can be hurtful to us and those around us.
Take for example Adam and Eve. God gave them the Garden of Eden to care for. His only command to them was to not eat from a specific tree in the garden. After telling them this, He did not take away their ability to eat from the tree. Adam and Eve were free to choose their own actions. And, through exercising their free will, the action they chose was to eat from the forbidden tree.
Adam and Eve used their free will and deviated from God’s plan. Eating the forbidden fruit had significant consequences not only for Adam and Eve but for all that came after them.
Man’s free will is not inconsistent with God’s plan for us. Even though man’s free will can cause conflict with God’s plan, our free will and our ability to choose is a gift from God. It is up to us to use this gift wisely or not. Even though we may stray from the path that God has for us, God will always be there for us to help us find our own way back and realize all of the good things he has in store for us.
Very good !
Thanks Jayme…
Hi Elmer,
While reading this particular article I couldn’t help but wonder what was God’s plan for that young woman killed at Yale? I know it was the killer’s will to kill her, but why? Why does such a wonderful young person have to die just because some jerk thinks it’s his right to do so?
I know. It’s difficult to comprehend. Have you read the artilce about our friend who was killed? It’s called “grieving for a friend.” It deals with the same issues…
This did not satisfy the answer of free will vs God’s plan for us. God is omniscient and therefore knows all. He is able to see into the distant, as well as recent, past and future. God has an overall plan which we all play a role in, while fulfilling the plan he has for each of us on an individual basis. God gave us free will to choose and make a decision, that is completely of our own accord, whenever the occasion arises . Once we have lived to our time, and pass on from this life, you can bet that we fulfilled the plan God had laid out for us (Proverbs 16:4) “The Lord has made everything for his own ends, even the wicked for the evil day.” If we all inevitably fill the roles that God has set for us, how could we have at any point in our lives possibly deviated to a point where we did not fulfill the role? Saying that someone did not fulfill the role God put them here for is like saying God was incapable of seeing into that person’s future, and further still was incapable of planning for their failure. I propose that God’s plan for all of us is fulfilled in each and every one of us. From the lowliest to the highest, despicable to the righteous, I believe that God planned for all of it. Our world today would not be the same place without some of God’s major plans coming to completion. Far be it for any one of us to say that a part of God’s plan is unrighteous or evil, for not a single person alive is able to see the far reaching effects of any event. Some seemingly terrible occurrences in our history have lead to greater goods, and a furthering of God’s plan for all of humanity. We will never know in our human cognizance what it is God has intended for us. We may have free will to choose different paths on how we eventually arrive at the end result God had planned for us, but I don’t know if you can consider it free will when we will ultimately live our lives to the effect that God wanted us to.
Ben, I posterd exactly the same argument and guess what, they deleted my question as if it does not exist. Yours is next, don’t ever expect them to answer you.
God does give free will and with the free will is the presence of God within us. Jesus knew free will but devoted all his will to serving God the Father, so becoming one with the Father. In each being is the gift of the seed of God, free will is the the gift of creation from the creator. The product of our free will is our overall product as people. To grow and bear the flowers of faith first we have to question why until we can question no more and then we have to know faith if we are to be shown the answers. We are God but we are human and not divine, but to be divine we must first recognise that we are human and then and only then can we truly begin the search for God and consciously choose to make our free will a tool for the will of God? Why? How? No human mind can answer this practically because of the divine nature of faith. Faith is not an idea, it is a lifestyle that abandons the realms of humanism for the divine (Higher Levels) of life.
That sounds a bit confusing so I’ll try to sum up better here….Human beings have God within them, and choice (free will) is the seed of God. How we grow with that free will (gift) depends on if we can first recognise it as a gift and by so doing then question the why behind it. Once we begin to truly question we begin to search for the Divine within us and once we accept the fact of it’s existence (God within us) then we have to also accept that we cannot explain it properly and so therefore have to trust it’s reason (faith). Or reject it’s reason (choice), which by the very ability to be able to do so ironically confirms the gift of God each of us is given (free will-choice). Which then leaves the question of faith. Faith is the choice to let your ability to choose unpremeditated choice. (I am getting confusing again-sorry!) O.k. this last bit on Faith.
Faith is the ultimate choice you can choose which basically means making no conscious choice at all but instead believing in the choice that is already made for you by God. But it is a one way ticket because to hear God’s choices for you, you have to choose God before everything else and that is the ultimate choice for your own choice (free will)
When did Eve eat an apple?
I know she ate “fruit” from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but not from an apple tree.
Please don’t mislead people.
Thanks,
Jason G
On the question of how does one reconcile God’s plans for our lives versus free will of our own.
I think when we first were conceived and perhaps even before, God did have a plan for our lives and that plan was for an everlasting life after our life here on earth. He showed us through Jesus as son of man who we should study, the Holy Bible which is His Word which we should read, the Holy Spirit which we must allow to abide within us, and prayer which we should do often as the blueprint for his Plan. Satan on the other hand is at work here on earth to tempt us to choose a different path as he did to Eve in the Garden of Eden. She chose to listen to Satan rather than God and we have been paying for it ever since. It is God’s plan that all of us should be with him in paradise forever and He has showed and told us what we must do to get there. Meanwhile, Satan is at work here on earth to tempt us to follow his path and therein lays the free choice each of us has. Live a life here on earth and die or live a life here on earth and have eternal life after our physical death here on earth.
In summary, it is God’s Plan that each of us lives an everlasting life with him and that Plan is for us to choose, right up to the day we die our earthly death. Of course that is when our choice dies as well. That is my thought on God’s Plan versus our free will.
This has been a question for years. We would love to believe that we actually have “free will”, to choose our own path, make our own decisions in life. But to truly believe man has ” free will” is to not believe in God or believe who he says he is. God either knows all things, or he doesn’t. God is either the creator of all things or he isn’t. Doesn’t Romans give us insight into God’s plan? 9:11…. For the children not yet being born having done any good or evil the purpose of God according to the election might stand. Before we were born, God knew us and planned our lives. Aren’t t the very hairs on our head numbered. If God knows the day and the hour of our first and last breath do we really think he wouldn’t know every step and decision we will make on earth? We either believe God created and planned everything and he is almighty or we don’t. We cant think God has a plan but we in some way can choose our own path or alter it because then God could be caught off guard or worse, disappointed that we didn’t go His way. There is no middle ground. We need to believe God created all things for His purpose- good and bad. Romans 9:15-23 tell at God will have mercy on whom he will, God raised up Pharaoh, a horrible leader, so that He (God) might show His power. God has mercy on whom he will have mercy and on whom he will hardeneth. Who are we to question the mind of the Lord. Hath not the potter power over the clay to make one vessel unto honor and the other unto dishonor? What if God, willing to show HIS wrath and to make HIS power known, endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction. Shall the thing formed say unto him that formed it, Why has thou made me thus? These are God’s words not mine. It seems as if we have free will. We come to a stop sign and we go right or left however to truly believe God planned our lives, we must believe the direction “we” chose had been preplanned. Sometimes it is to get us from point A to point B. Only God knows and I for one look. As I look back on my life…. All the wrong decisions “I” made and love to see God’s hand in each one of them. I am where I am in my life because of Him. I love believing in a God that has my life planned out and I love not knowing that plan. This too is by design. My will IS God’s will.
I really appreciate the relationship of freewill and god’s plan for us. Before I’m always asking the plan of God for me to show it to me via dream because I really need to know before I will take a step. But upon reading this article, I was able to open up my heart and mind then I need to start searching for God’s plan for me. I need then to understand the situation where i belong so that I will be able to know God’s plan for me..
In all,God is great.All we need is Grace and the leading of the Spirit. Thanks all,it was all encouraging