Do Our Choices Matter? Part 2
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Last week, we took up a question from a reader.
What latitude do we have in our life choices, and how do we determine if those choices conform to God’s plan for our lives?
The question highlights a tension between God’s sovereignty and human freedom. To summarize the problem, if God is sovereign, how can humans have free will? But if humans are free to choose, how can God be sovereign?
While there’s a whole spectrum of ideas held by Christian theologians throughout the centuries, my own view is that God has ordained the ends but not all of the means by which those ends are achieved. He has chosen in his sovereignty to partner with us in the administration of this world, giving us the freedom to determine in part how his will is carried out—while God continues to direct history to the ultimate fulfillment of his determined outcome.
In other words, we have genuine freedom, but there’s a limit to our freedom. To adapt an analogy shared with me by a new friend I met this weekend, a fish is free to swim wherever it wants in the stream. But the fish is not free to crawl out of the water and go for a run on land. The fish’s freedom is limited.
Similarly, God allows us real freedom within the boundaries of our human nature and his ordained outcomes. We are free to choose many things: careers, extracurricular activities, hobbies, etc. But there are other things we don’t have the freedom to choose: what family we’re born into, what era of history we live in, the color of our skin, or whether we’re male or female.
God has ordained his will, but astonishingly, he gives us the freedom to choose—in part— how his will is carried out! How incredible that the Creator of the Universe would partner with someone like me!
A great example of this in Scripture is found in Isaiah 6. The prophet Isaiah has a vision of God sitting on his throne. Winged spiritual beings called seraphim are there, continuously praising God. We read in verse 8: ‘And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.”’
God declares his will. He will send someone to speak on his behalf to the people of Judah. But, he invites Isaiah to partner with him in how his will is carried out. “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Isaiah has a choice—will he go, or will he pass? Either way, God will carry out his will, but Isaiah gets to decide whether or not he will respond to the call. There are many other instances in Scripture of God ordaining the ends and inviting his servants to participate in planning how those ends would be achieved (read 1 Kings 22 for a wild example).
To apply this to a situation many of us may be more familiar with, suppose a high school senior is trying to decide which college to attend. She believes God has called her to work as a doctor, and she is praying for his direction on which school to apply to. But she doesn’t hear any guidance. It may be that God has called her to a vocation: practicing medicine—but he is allowing her the freedom to choose how to pursue that calling: which college she attends.
I can imagine similar scenarios for all sorts of decisions in life: what neighborhood you will live in, which company you will work for, what church you’ll belong to, where your kids will attend school. Of course, God may have a specific plan ordained for any of these decisions. And if he does, he’ll work it out—he ordains the ends. But often, these are the kinds of decisions he leaves up to us—we get to choose some of the means. If I’m regularly sitting before him in prayer, he’ll ensure I get what I need to make the right decision that leads to his ordained plan.
To summarize this post, God gives us a certain amount of freedom within the boundaries of our nature and the ends he has ordained. He chooses to stoop down to our level and gives us the incredible honor of partnering with him to determine—in part—how his will should be accomplished in and through us.