“Do you believe in fate?” I once was asked about five years ago from a stranger. He was 6′ 5″, pleasant to look at, nervous and had just given me a message that we both believed was directed by God. We were in Germany at the World Youth Day festivities in Koln. (side note: three years later all that he had to say to me that night came to pass as true in all regards…this entire story is laid out in my book EXPOSED) The reason why he was nervous was because he admitted that he had evil thoughts towards me and initially had planned to do something to harm me. The ‘message’ that came to him was received by him and delivered only after we began to talk and apparently whatever battle ensued within him subsided.
This young man was not just nervous…he was scared for his soul. “Do you believe in fate?” he asked me and I knew what he meant. “Do you mean what goes around comes around? And that if you are predestined to do bad you will?” He nodded, on the verge of tears. “No,” I said, my answer firm because I knew the message he needed to hear as well. “I believe that even though a person freely makes a bad decision that they still have the opportunity to be remorseful and to come to God in reconciliation to express that remorse and regret and to receive forgiveness and mercy. But, if that person does not freely choose to experience that remorse and regret and chooses to continue to live life making bad choices led by the enemy then the path of their life will fall in line with the choices they make leading them to a path of misery.” He cried then. This big young man. He left me to find a priest to reconcile with God.
So here is the debate that happened last night. A friend of mine said she believed in predestination. That God knows what we will become. Myself and another friend thought she was saying that God predetermines who will be bad and do bad things and who will be good. So we began to argue our case of the gift of free will. That’s when it got confusing because she said that she did believe in free will. However, that didn’t make sense. You can’t have free will and predestination in the same category. I argued basically the point I made above and my other friend said that God gives us a map in life and the tools to journey through this life. It is our choice to take that journey that leads to our eternal destination in heaven, or to stray and make choices that lead us to hell. Then my friend who said she believed in predestination argued ‘But God already knows whether you are going to heaven or hell.’
All in all the argument kept going around and around. I mainly sat back and tried to listen to the both of them and I have to admit my friend who brought up the predestination was confusing me. And I see how easily it can be confused. If God knows ALL things then of course he knows where we will end up in the end. So I saw her point in that, however, to me since God has no time the way we consider time then our lives to him our in stacks (and obviously like in a split instant)…but it’s like an ongoing obstacle course, with each choice we make he realigns the good that can come from the bad, this is true too for the paths that we cross where someone else makes a bad choice and we get caught in the crossfire. All in all, as long as we are connected to him of our own free will then our outcome will be good.
In predestination or fate, there would be no point in prayer. A mother whose son is charged as a rapist or burgler or drug addict would only shrug her shoulders and say ‘well I guess that his fate, there is nothing I can do.’ But a mother who believes in free will and her son makes these atrocious bad choices can get on her knees and pray and she can try to give her son whatever he needs to change his path but ultimately it would have to be his choice to remain bad or to change his life and become whom God intended for him to be all along.
I spoke with my friend who argued predestination this morning…I think after some sleep and stepping back from everything she realized that it isn’t predestination that she believes at all…the use of the term had us all stumped. It is hard to grasp that God does know everything so why would we pray? I’m not sure I have a great argument for that.
I do know that if we align our will with God’s and try to focus on praying to accept HIS will for our lives then we will succeed in receiving true joy.
So, what are your thoughts? I’m interested in hearing them.
Blessings
Shannon