Christianese 101: Free Will

–>Can I mess up God’s plan for me?<–

I feel like a lot of younger Christians, and even some older ones, have this question on their mind every now and again. They often find themselves wondering if we have free will can we mess up the plan God has for us? I mean, can you mess up God’s will for your life? Can you just do something so insane, so crazy that you destroy everything that the all mighty God has planned for you to do? Some people would say yes that because God gives us ‘free will’ we can indeed mess up what He wants for us, while others stay focused on the fact that God is sovereign and since He controls everything there is no way that you could mess up His will for your life. Me, I’m a bit more complex than that. My answer is, no and yes at the same time. You can indeed ‘mess up’ God’s will for your life, but you can’t really mess it up.

“For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”

Romans 5:19(ESV)

Well, nothing really surprises God, so how could you ‘mess up’ His will for your life? Most of the people who ‘messed up’ God’s plan usually disobeyed God’s will directly after He warned them. Examples would be the Israelites who were supposed to enter the promise land within a shorter amount of time that they wandered through the wilderness for 40 years, King Zedekiah who refused to listen to Jerimiah’s warnings, and the most infamous of all King Saul, who ended up being dethroned and killed. The thing that I would like to point out about all these people, were that they were anointed/set apart from the everyday average people, they were disobedient, and their disobedience happened consistently. See, God has His way of doing things and according to the Bible He allows us to choose whether or not we want to submit to His will or not. He gives us a set time to follow His will and if we refuse sometimes He will choose to use someone else. So the choice is ours, to serve or not to serve.

This makes you wonder how ‘free’ is our ‘free will’. Free will is not free if you’re disobeying God. It always has a cost that’s way much more than you bargained for. It’s important to stay in God’s will because your obedience or disobedience can affect more people than you know. At the time you disobey it seems small, but know that you’re better off being under God’s wings of protection.

“”I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him; for this is your life and the length of your days, that you may live in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them”

Deuteronomy 30:19-20(NASB)

However, based off of most of what I’ve experienced and seen in the Bible you can still ‘mess up’ and God will still guide you in His will anyway. Jonah, for example, was openly rebellious to God and did not want to obey Him in the task that was assigned, however God did not relent and continued to try to persuade Jonah into His will(by sending a giant fish to swallow him!). Moses is another example of someone who protested against God’s will at the beginning. I mean how can you see a burning bush talk and still basically say to that same bush, ‘I can’t do it because I’m unqualified.’(paraphrased) Eventually He gave in and submitted to God after God pointed out the flaws in his(Moses’) excuses.

Look at Joseph, His brothers saw fit to stop him from ruling over anything after he told them his dreams. They plotted to kill him after hearing his purpose! Yet God still knew the plans He had for this young man and did not stop or fail in fulfilling them. Their plots, their anger, their jealousy were all null and void against the hand of the Lord! Last, but not least, is Jacob. He thought he stole something—a blessing—that truly did not belong to him. He felt like God had blessed him by mistake. As if anyone could trick God into blessing them, hah! No, God had to set him straight because He, God, had intended to bless him, Jacob, from the moment he was born!

The point being is that when you are called to do something by God and you are sincere in following Him God will not give up on putting you in His will. Trust Him to secure His will for you. Your insecurities cannot stop His will from coming to past in your life, the plots of your enemies cannot stop it, and you cannot accidentally stumble into it either. What God has for you is for you! There will not be any mistakes in Him placing you where He’s called you! His will is going to be done in your life as long as you continue to spend time with Him, get to know Him, and obey His word. I implore you to read about all the people I’ve talked about in this blog. They have interesting stories and can help with further study in disobedience, free will, and staying in God’s will.