I've been wondering about something that's been truly bothering me for the last few weeks. Does God map out our lives, and the people that we meet? For example, let's say I meet my future Wife a year from now, at 11PM at night on a train. Did I meet her because of my free-will making me get on this specific train, or did God bring me to her? Did God control me and make me go to this specific train, or did I go there because I freely choose too? These weird notions and idea's have been making me increasingly paranoid about my faith in the Lord. I just feel like, what if I'm not in control of my life at all? What if I was born into this world, with everything that I do already pre-determined and planned out? What if I truly have no free-will in this world and everybody I meet is due to fate and by God? I just feel like I'm becoming a bit delusional having these thoughts lately and I just don't know if life is truly up to me anymore..
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Does God map out our lives?
- Thread starter xhayatox
- Start date
Tina
Member
If she's your future wife as ordained by God, then God must have brought you to her and her to you.
Matthew 6:34 - "do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Fear and paranoia should have no place in your life. Sometimes God's-Will and your own free-will go hand in hand and work together to accomplish God's purposes.
God did not create us to be robots and zombies with no way of making our own life choices and decisions. That is why God gave us brains to think. We are exhorted to "trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding; in all our ways to submit to Him, and He will make our paths straight" (Proverbs 3:5-6).
I believe God is in total control of our lives as long as we strive to walk close with Him and not in the ways of the world. Even when things go wrong "God works all things for good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28).
By saying we have no free-will, you would be saying that God controlled people to sin, and even to murder and rape. Even David (in the Bible) committed adultery. Did God control him to do that? I'd have to say that it would be pointless to believe in the God of the Bible if you believed He controlled the very people He was going to punish for what He called sin. The Bible also says "<SUP>12</SUP> Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" John 1:12 (NIV 1984). The Bible says as well: "<SUP id=en-NIV1984-5728 class=versenum>19</SUP> This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live" Deuteronomy 30:19 (NIV 1984).
That said, I believe that God has a desired plan for your life. He knows what COULD happen, if you make the right choices, and that is the awesome plan He keeps calling you toward (he also doesn't set the bar so high for accomplishing certain big things that you wouldn't be able to do it). BUT, we have the right to choose to not do that plan, and of course whatever part of the plan Satan sniffs might happen Satan will try to fight so that you don't accomplish it, while God fights to help you accomplish it. As for the your future spouse, there are plenty of Christians who go against the Biblical guideline of making sure to marry another Christian, and they marry a non-Christian and they suffer for it. If I'm not mistaken, the divorce rate is almost as high in the "church" as it is in the world. This isn't God's doing.
Also, you can take my example. My mom was a teenager fooling around with her boyfriend at the time. She got pregnant and I popped out later. This wasn't God's plan, and if things had gone right, she wouldn't have been having sex, and I wouldn't have existed. But God also knew, before the world was created, that my mom was going to be fooling around, and so He made up a plan that would work and be best for my life. It's not like God is limited in His resources, and so it's not an issue if one more person is put on the list to go to Heaven. And so here I am, because of the free will of two other people; and now I have a free will, and I have choices to make. Such is life.
Though I will say, there are some meetings and events that God does setup according to His design. Some people call these "divine appointments." They don't happen all the time, but God is capable of bumping us into someone if He wants to.
That said, I believe that God has a desired plan for your life. He knows what COULD happen, if you make the right choices, and that is the awesome plan He keeps calling you toward (he also doesn't set the bar so high for accomplishing certain big things that you wouldn't be able to do it). BUT, we have the right to choose to not do that plan, and of course whatever part of the plan Satan sniffs might happen Satan will try to fight so that you don't accomplish it, while God fights to help you accomplish it. As for the your future spouse, there are plenty of Christians who go against the Biblical guideline of making sure to marry another Christian, and they marry a non-Christian and they suffer for it. If I'm not mistaken, the divorce rate is almost as high in the "church" as it is in the world. This isn't God's doing.
Also, you can take my example. My mom was a teenager fooling around with her boyfriend at the time. She got pregnant and I popped out later. This wasn't God's plan, and if things had gone right, she wouldn't have been having sex, and I wouldn't have existed. But God also knew, before the world was created, that my mom was going to be fooling around, and so He made up a plan that would work and be best for my life. It's not like God is limited in His resources, and so it's not an issue if one more person is put on the list to go to Heaven. And so here I am, because of the free will of two other people; and now I have a free will, and I have choices to make. Such is life.
Though I will say, there are some meetings and events that God does setup according to His design. Some people call these "divine appointments." They don't happen all the time, but God is capable of bumping us into someone if He wants to.
I see... well, I don't know how I feel about this honestly.. Everytime I just so happen to meet somebody unexpectedly or make a new friend somewhere, I always feel like I met this particular person because God made me be at this exact place and time to meet them. I just want to feel like I'm the main reason I met this person. I don't want to feel like a puppet or something, like it was all written down for me, to meet somebody at an exact place and time. It just feels too delusional and hard for me to understand.. I don't know anymore.
Nathan Alterton
Member
I think the Bible is clear that God directs some elements of our lives, He clearly intended Joseph to be sent to Egypt, for Moses to be saved from death as a baby and to grow into the Law Giver. He intended Cyrus to free the Jews from the Babylonian captivity.
That said, I firmly believe that God leaves much of what happens in the world on a day to day basis in our hands. Do I go to the store after work? That's my choice as one of many possible courses of action before me at this time.
Regarding your future spouse, God does give us direction: he/she must be of the opposite the sex to you, he/she cannot already be married, he/she should be a fellow Christian, etc. Within those spheres of guidance, God allows you to make a free choice about whom you would like to marry.
That said, I firmly believe that God leaves much of what happens in the world on a day to day basis in our hands. Do I go to the store after work? That's my choice as one of many possible courses of action before me at this time.
Regarding your future spouse, God does give us direction: he/she must be of the opposite the sex to you, he/she cannot already be married, he/she should be a fellow Christian, etc. Within those spheres of guidance, God allows you to make a free choice about whom you would like to marry.
This passage teaches that we should and do make decisions about our lives, what we will do and where we will we go, but that we should be humble enough to recognize that God will sometimes frustrate our plans in favor of His own.
I do believe God makes a way where we can not find a way, like opening doors of opportunity, and at times closing doors that could harm us if we were to walk through them, but it's our choice to walk through those doors and reap the benefits of all of Gods good pleasure for us when we remain in Him and He in us.