I have had three discussions about our free will over the last three months that have stuck with me. Then last night I was watching the documentary The Human Experience and I saw the following quote.
“The last of the human freedom’s is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
– Viktor E. Frankl
As soon as I saw this quote I immediately thought that this seems not only to be the last of our freedoms, but also the first and original freedom we were given when God gave us our free will.
Until recently I have limited my thoughts of our free will to only our physical actions. When I think of free will only in relation to my physical actions such as taking the stairs vs. the elevator or going to work vs. staying home or doing something wrong vs. doing something right, then I become quite confused because if God gave me free will, but knows what I will choose to do and can bring about events that will cause me to make a different choice then my free will seems limited. Please don’t misunderstand me though. I am not saying that this limitation means our physical actions have no bearing or carry no weight. I believe God still wants us to do the right thing. I believe He still wants us to be generous rather than selfish, He wants us to not steal, He wants us to not kill, He wants us to love others, but we can’t forgot that God is bigger than we can imagine. God can take any bad physical action we make and combine it with other actions to make it good in the end.
Isn’t this what he did through Jesus’ death and resurrection? God took the worst imaginable physical action (us killing His son Jesus) and turned it into good (resurrecting His son Jesus). By combining these, Jesus’ death becomes good because without it He could not have been resurrected.
Now, if I change my perspective of free will and look at it as my freedom to choose how I perceive things or to choose my attitude as Viktor Frankl put it in his quote above, then the limitations I spoke of disappear.
God can give me a sunny day, but it is up to me to enjoy the sun or complain about the heat. God can give me a rainy day, but again it is my choice to complain about the rain or to instead look for a rainbow.
He completely relinquished control of our consciousness through free will giving us complete freedom to perceive the world as we wish. This doesn’t mean that God will ever stop trying to convince us to perceive good in all things, but he literally cannot make us see the good in all things. He is limited to trying to convince us that all things are good through combining bad actions with others to make them good in the end and through showering us with grace and inspiration which we have the choice to accept or decline.
It is completely up to us to see the good, but what happens when and if we do perceive the good in everything?
I think we will have found our own unique perspective of the good in everything which will mean that we have also surrendered to God’s will because God’s will is Good!!!
Therefore I think we will have found God’s peace!!!
God thank you for loving us so much that you gave us free will. Please help me to use my free will to find the good in everything and therefore surrender to Your will!
I want to stand for good… it is everywhere even if we don’t think we can see it, it is hidden from view, but it is there!
I want to stand for Jesus… he is Good, Oh so Good!!!