Why Free Will?

Does it seem strange to you that a good, pure and holy God, one with absolute power over our world, would allow evil to not only to exist but also to be at work in His world?

For many years, this question plagued my mind.

As a mom, I know that I have complete authority over my children (at least for now since they are 15 and 11). My will is that they would love and obey me and my rules. Much to their dismay, one of the rules is that they keep their rooms clean and make their beds. Yet there are days when I enter their rooms to find clothes strewn about, beds unmade, and wet towels littering the floor. That behavior is against my will. I prefer they keep their rooms clean. BUT they have the choice.

It is the same with us. God is our authority. God created us with free will. Free will means that we can choose to love and obey God or not.

C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity writes,

A world of automata – of creatures that worked like machines – would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.

God knows abundant life…true joy and happiness… is found only in a surrendered love relationship with Him. Surrender requires yielding, yielding to the power of another. God knew when He created human beings they would fight surrender…that they would choose to find happiness outside of Him. It began with Adam and Eve and has continued ever since. God’s creatures search for find happiness in the things of this world, in following the will of this world rather than the will of God.

C.S. Lewis goes on to write,

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other.

God became a man. That man, Jesus, surrendered His will; He suffered and died and set an example for us. Upon His death, God resurrected Him with a resurrection power that is now available to us. That power if found in God’s Holy Spirit. His Spirit fuels our will and our choices.

Yes, watching the news and reading the paper reveals a plethora of evil in this world…story after story of people who choose evil, who harm the very world and creatures God created.

But what we must not forget is that all around us is a leaving, breathing organism fueled by God’s love and His Holy Spirit. It is the body of Christ. It is made up of men and women who choose to say “yes” to God. Who choose good over evil. Who choose right instead of wrong. Our God, through His Holy Spirit, actually operates in and through this body to do His Will on this earth…to reach the least and the lost…to feed the hungry…to love the unlovable…to encourage the depressed…to shine light into dark.

As we live side by side with evil, never forget:

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Blessings,