How do you consider your free will? A privilege? A burden? Impossible? A challenge? If you are a nurture v nature person, you might consider free will as impossible because people are as their environment gives experiences. Actually the nature advocates use that as their reasoning too… they just substitute family/friends rather than experiences.
Both are right and wrong. A burden then… now every choice and decision always brings with it the ‘burden of responsibility’ (accepted or not). A big ‘yuk’! For a moment consider if you didn’t have free will. Would you be irritated? frustrated? angry? Feeling you received a ‘raw deal’? But without free will every action, thought is based in fatalism – no choice. Would this be what you’d want? If you feel you wouldn’t be ‘controlled’ by fatalism… what would replace free will? Unless you are totally capricious in your behavior, actions and words are always based in something. Free will is placing the opportunity, responsibility, authority, choice squarely in your hands.
From a different perspective, have you ever consider that the God of the Universe has gifted you with free will – that it is a privilege? That He was willing to allow you complete decision-making always? So how do you handle this gift? Gleeful that (nobody, nothing) controls you? Do you act cavalierly? Trying to avoid the responsibility? Privilege is the total opposite of all that. One source says:
“The privileged are those who belong to a class that enjoys special favor. Certainly, that’s true of believers. We as Christians belong to a class who enjoy special favor. We have rich spiritual privileges in Christ.”
Again… it’s how we look at, define, and display our definition of words. If we believe we cannot succeed because we aren’t strong enough to combat the forces arraigned against us the we’ve lost before we’ve begun. I’ve always found it interesting that when I study free will that nearly all of the resources, scripture verses used are negative. Almost that we should flee from free will. Isn’t it interesting… and I wonder (tongue in cheek) where the opposition is coming from.
There are verses designed to help be confident that when our free will is being attacked, we have help to sustain us in making the right decisions. We have the privilege and two books tell us (1 Corinthians and Hebrews).
“No temptation [regardless of its source] has overtaken or enticed you that is not common to human experience [nor is any temptation unusual or beyond human resistance]; but God is faithful [to His word—He is compassionate and trustworthy], and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability [to resist], but along with the temptation He [has in the past and is now and] will [always] provide the way out as well, so that you will be able to endure it [without yielding, and will overcome temptation with joy].” [1 Corinthians 10:13]
This verse acknowledges that there are forces seeking to control our free will but at the same time we see that there is NO temptation that is beyond our ability to resist sin. Remember too that we have Jesus, our High Priest:
” For we do not have a High Priest who is unable to sympathize and understand our weaknesses and temptations, but One who has been tempted [knowing exactly how it feels to be human] in every respect as we are, yet without [committing any] sin. 16 Therefore let us [with privilege] approach the throne of grace [that is, the throne of God’s gracious favor] with confidence and without fear, so that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find [His amazing] grace to help in time of need [an appropriate blessing, coming just at the right moment].” [Hebrews 4:15-16]
Never give away a privilege and free will (extended to all) is precisely that – a gift to us whether or not we accept it. But with privilege comes responsibility – ours! We need to accept the ramification and consequences of our choices, our decisions. And never forget 1 John 1:9 – restoration is always available.
