God Controls Everything - But Man Makes Free-will Choices?

At my church, we did a study of Rick Warren’s book, “The Purpose Driven Life”. In the book, it is stated that God has planned out purposes in a Christian’s life. The overall purposes are listed as: 1. To worship God for His pleasure 2. To be an actual member of His Family 3. To become like Christ 4. To serve God as he uses us to serve man and 5. To spread the Gospel of Christ among unbelievers.

It is also stated that each Christian has individual unique abilities that God has planned to specifically use through that individual.

This is all certainly true. But in small group discussions of the book, that two-thousand year old dilemma rears its head again. The question in the back of so many Christian minds comes to the fore when any discussion of God’s control, purpose and planning is active. The question is: “Where does man’s free-will choice come in if God is completely powerful and in control?” This question has been debated among Bible scholars for millennia without any definitive answer.

I presented the following reasoning to my small group discussion which, to me, is the only way that I, personally, can harmonize God’s control with my free­will.

Let’s take a down to earth example. Say that I am in New York city when I am born again into the new birth. God’s goal, God’s purpose, is to get me by a lifetime trip to the moral perfection of San Francisco, California
(in reality, not so morally perfect!).

But God does not give me a AAA Trip-Tik highway map from New York to San Francisco. He does not tell me that this is my ordered route that I must follow. My only instruction is that I must head generally west toward my destination of San Francisco. But I have my total freedom to choose my own cross-country route.

I can take a southern route through Washington DC, St. Louis, and onto the old “Route 66” which is described in the song as “you go through St. Louie, Joplin Missouri, Oklahoma City is mighty pretty; you see Amarillo, Gallop New Mexico, Flagstaff Arizona, don’t forget Winona, Kingman, Barstow, San Bernardino”, into Los Angeles and up the Pacific coast highway to San Francisco.

Or I can take the northern route through Minneapolis, The Dakotas, Yellowstone, over the Rockies through Donner Pass and down into San Francisco.

I can even take an all Canadian route through Detroit and the Canadian provinces to Vancouver, British Columbia, then down through Seattle Washington, Portland Oregon, to San Francisco.

The point is that there are many ways that I can go generally west to my destination of San Francisco. There is no one RIGHT way — one God ordained way. I have the freedom on a day to day basis to choose my own unique travel plan. The one thing that God will not allow me to do is to go straight north, east or south. This is not His purpose for me and He will correct me by forceful measures to go generally west. Read the book of Jonah in the Bible and see what can happen when you try to run the wrong direction from God. You can end up as whale-food!

But here’s the way my example makes good sense to me. God can take whatever gifts or talents that He has uniquely built into me and He can use them wherever 1 am on my chosen trip. God has things for me to do along the way, but I can do these things as well in Flagstaff Arizona, as in Minneapolis, Minnesota, or as in Vancouver, British Columbia. I mustn’t get the idea that I must take a particular route for my life in order to please God - I must just head generally west.

God wants to use me where I am best suited, where I am best motivated. And motivations come from my unique desires. In other words, when I am in union with Christ, I CHOOSE THE WESTWARD PATH OF MY DESIRE! And God will use me where I am!

One more thing must be said of my example: no one ever gets to San Francisco in this human life! San Francisco is Christian perfection. Mother Teresa probably made it to the Golden Gate Bridge on the outskirts of San Francisco. Billy Graham is probably heading up the Pacific coast highway toward San Francisco. I’m not sure where I am on my westward trip but I know that I am heading generally west and am being used along the way. I’ve made a few side trips along the way in which God has pointed out to me not to linger but to get back on the westward path.

We Christians are to live along our road of life, not constantly looking for the most convenient “Interstate highway system” to San Francisco. We are to take the route our heart desires as long as it heads generally WEST. We can enjoy the scenery that we choose to pass through. And God will use us in the cities and villages of our choice. As they said in the San Francisco gold-rush days: GO WEST, YOUNG MAN, GO WEST!

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