Do you remember these books?  If you grew up in the 80's or 90's, then you might be familiar with them.  They were a popular genre of books when I was young.  The basic idea was that as a reader, you could select different paths throughout the story and end up with a unique ending that matched up with your choices.  I think this type of story involvement appeals to the independent folk who like to have control of their own destiny.  It probably drives some of you crazy because you have to have resolution to each possible path, so you read the book like 10 times just to make sure you don't miss some scenario.

Well, I have observed that real life shares some of the same features of these books.  I believe that each person has literally millions of choices to make during their life.  Most people have the opportunity to choose everything from what they will eat to who they will marry.  Obviously, people living in poverty or some parts of the world with minimal freedoms do not enjoy the luxury of choice as often as a middle-class American.  I don't believe God manipulates each of us as a puppeteer would control a marionette.  But the question comes, doesn't God have a plan?  Doesn't God know everything that has happened, is happening, and is going to happen?  Didn't he say he predestined us to be his children?

I will most likely not provide a complete philosophy on the issue of freewill, afterall this is a blog, and you would get bored.  But I will say, the longer I live, the more I see how God can weave our choices into His plan as we go along.  Both good and bad, as long as we choose to abide with Him, He continues to actively work in our lives.  Even those that are separated from Him, He offers opportunities for them to be united with him.  Amazingly, in His good wisdom He enables us to make lots of choices of our own desire, and then He uses us along with our choices to accomplish His will on earth.  This doesn't mean there our millions of paths to reach God, there is still only one Way, through Christ. It also doesn't mean that your choices don't affect your relationship with God, they do.  But it does mean God has given us a lot of freedom to choose how we want to live and who we want to spend our time with. 

Ultimately, you have to daily examine your choices and see which direction you are going and which direction you want to go.  Right now you have a choice to make a comment or not, ha!  Tomorrow you will wake up to a brand new day, so choose your own adventure.  But as that great quote from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade advises, "Choose wisely."