I watched a really great movie last year. It’s called The Adjustment Bureau. It had a very profound finishing line:

…freewill is a gift that you’ll never know how to use until you fight for it. I think that’s the Chairman’s real plan. That maybe one day, we won’t write the plan, you will.

Is free will really free will if the Chairman is involved? How can it be free if someone is involved? I thought about it for about 1 week and then stopped thinking about it for 8 months until I stumbled upon it just now again and decided to do some FREE writing in my journal about it… I realized that the more I thought about it the less it made sense. So here’s where my pen’s ink lead me…

Yes. Free will is a gift. A God given one. And perhaps also one where God wants to be involved in. Perhaps that’s the key to understanding the gift: God wants to be involved in it.

Why? Because it is one of those gifts that if we are left alone with it, initially, without some training and intervention from the giver,  it will destroy us. He knows that without some proper guidance, we wont be able to enjoy the gift. He knows that we have the tendency to mess things up, complicate things and miss the purpose of the gift.

The gift was never about us. The gift was not for our glory, but God’s glory. His glory through us. And, thats why we struggle so much with the idea of free will. Because we miss this vital part, it self destruct on us and other people. Our actions through free will normally has the tendency to destroy other people’s lives. And that’s why God needs to intervene at times. That’s how much he loves His people [and that's why He needed to intervene with the plan of salvation...]

The more we realize that the gift is not for our glory, our careers, our relationships or our money, the more we will be liberated. If we realize what to do with it, our actions will become less destructive and God will have to intervene less. That is what truly liberates us.

Free will is a gift that God has given us for His splendor to be displayed. That’s what gives it real power.

It is not the gift or idea of free will that gives us liberty in life to do whatever we want to, but knowing why it has been given to us in the first place.

Think about it…

Steyn Viljoen