Choice… one of God’s most precious gifts to his children…
As a youth pastor I have been asked this question so many times; why doesn’t God just make us love him. Or at least a paraphrase of that question. To me that is very much like the eternal question of why God allows bad things to happen.
I’ve always answered those questions this way. Out love for God must come from us or it is meaningless. In like fashion our behavior must come from us… which is unfortunate. If we were forced to make the right choices, do the right things and conduct ourselves rightly there could never be nobility, heroism or love.
God gave us freedom of choice so our choices would have meaning. There is an analogy to this from my profession. In teaching you will find certain teachers who rule with an iron fist. Students in those classes are quiet. They look as if they are concentrating on their assignments. They look as if they are going the right thing. But in reality they are not. Such a teacher cannot turn her back on the class or leave the room. Should she do so the students will often run wild.
Another type of teacher establishes a true, properly loving relationship with her students. She respects them. She provides an example of what goodness is. She doesn’t coerce her students. No, she inspires them. She causes them to love her and love doing good just because it is right. She is often soft-spoken. She does not demean her students in any way. If she does lose her temper she will apologize. And her students understand. She will be able to turn her back because she has earned the love and respect of her students. She has also instilled in them the desire to do good, to please her because they have chosen to make her important in their lives because of who she is not because they fear punishment.
Thank you Lord God that you have chosen to simply love us, to bless us all equally with your gifts…the rain…the sun…love…food… Thank you that you have given us the choice to follow you in the path of righteousness. Thank you for not forcing us to do your will because that would take away the rightness of our choices.
No, the evil things that happen in the world are not the work of God. Rather they are the work of human beings who have chosen to follow the darkness rather than the light. Thousands of people are starving today in Africa and other countries not because God wills it but because people have willed it. Their governments have chosen the way of corruption, evil and neglect.
The two greatest commandments are to love the Lord thy God with all your heart and to love your neighbor as yourself.
The chosen adherence to those two commandments would solve all the world’s problems that we observe today. God gives us the choice because he wants us to do the right thing because we have become like his Son Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus was not forced to place his body on the cross we are not forced to follow him.
If force had been used in either act, neither would have had any meaning.
It is by chosing the right way that good is done in the world and the blessings fall like the soft rain.
Another fascinating take on this topic can be found at Jesus Lives http://www.jesuslives.co.za/2009/12/21/predestination-vs-free-will/#comment-4221.
Crystal at Perspective expands on this a bit, I think correctly in the post http://povcrystal.blogspot.com/2009/12/ben-witherington-antinomy.html. In that post the point is made that God does intervene at times in the same way a parent will stop a child from running out in the road. But God still allows us the choice in what to do with the intervention. Some children who are raised perfectly still go wrong because they choose to follow the wrong path. But, like the prodigal son, we always have the choice of coming back.
What a blessing that we have a God who allows us to choose to love him.
Daily Graces 