Freewill

(Here is our youngest grandchild, Kayla Rose who is about 8 weeks old)

Someone I love is having a hard time, which means I’m having a hard time. Love it like that, it makes you care, it causes you to long for the best for them, and strain with all you heart that they will make good and wise and godly decisions and that each choice will take them on down the path of righteousness.

But the intensity of my passion will not control their free will. Freewill is one of the most mysterious and greatest of all the paradoxes—ever. After all, if the Lord had given us only the ability to do good and to choose good all would be good, right? In one way, yes but not really. The thing is the Lord is after our freely given obedience flowing from a surrendered heart of love. Me, choosing to do that which pleases Him because I love Him. Sometimes it hurts, it usually hard and often means I have to let go of myself and my own self-focused desires.

Yet, the Only Wise God has given each person free will so we can chose to love and follow Him or go our own way. The thing is we may really love Him and still make choices that take us down the path away from the Great Lover of our Souls.

I’m rambling. Sorry. So, back to it, have you noticed that you can’t make choices for others? Some of us spend a lot of energy trying to control what others do, it never works. At the same time, it is so easy to refuse to take responsibility for our own choices! If I’m worrying, I can choose to pray and to give my concerns to God and not worry, that’s freewill. If I wish I didn’t ache, I can go for a walk or to the gym, that’s free will. If I wish this world was full of God’s love being expressed, I can get involved in the doing instead of spending my energy trying to control what I can’t and controlling what I can.

After all one day, when we take our last breath, the Lord will ask us about OUR life, only ours, and how we choose to freely live. “Lord make me faithful. Show me how to live a life in the fullness of your love. Please help me and those in my inner circle to love you with all their heart and mind and soul and strength. To the praise of your glory. Amen”

Here is our youngest grandchild, Kayla Rose.