As an American, I live in and enjoy a culture where I have a lot of freedom:
Freedom to speak my mind
Freedom to move around
Freedom to create
Freedom to destroy
And the most curious freedom of all…..the freedom to be stupid. “Hey guys, hold my beer, watch this?!?”
In Christian literature, we call this free will. After life itself, it is arguably the most valuable gift from God in the old testament. There were two named trees in the Garden of Eden:
The tree of life
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil……essentially the tree of free will.
Life itself is terribly precious…..terribly valuable.
Free will is terribly precious…..terribly valuable.
We exercise this gift every day. We enjoy it immensely. I cannot imagine life……without free will.
The greatest triumphs of mankind arise from the exercise of free will.
The greatest tragedies of mankind arise from the exercise of free will.
So…..you have to ask…..what was God thinking? I hate to second guess my creator. But, you have to admit……this world would be a lot neater, a lot more organized, certainly a lot more peaceful……without free will. Even if the revocation of free will only applied to rules number one and number two…..Love God….Love everybody else………. this world would be an entirely different place…….a much nicer place. This world would be a much better place………if God revoked free will and forced us to love.
And that brings me to the crux of this post:
Why did God give us free will?
To let us wear a Hawaiian shirt to work (I have).
To let us paint the kitchen dark purple. (I have not).
To let us use the copier at work for personal jobs.
To let us lie to our parents when we miss curfew.
To make war.
To commit genocide.
Not likely.
I believe that God gave us free will for one and only one reason:
God gave us free will so that we could choose to love him………choose to honor him……..choose to recognize his sovereignty.
Or not.
All of the other choices that we make…….are just “collateral damage”.
So we go through our lives making choices……exercising our free will. We really need to keep our eye on the most important choice we will ever make……..in the eyes of God……..the decision to give to God or to withhold from God…….the one thing that he wants from us most of all…..the thing that he wants so badly that he gave us the freedom to keep it from him:
Our Love.
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah, 6:8, ESV
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord,
Deuteronomy 10: 12-13, ESV