Choices, Choices - Part 3 (Others Can Say, "No," Too)

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I started out this story believing everything that happened was God's perfect (specific) will and it was my job not to mess that up.

Then yesterday I started changing my mind and working in the idea of freewill and how crucial it is to have a choice and the freedom to say, "no."

The kicker to all this is as I started understanding more about how if I was free to make choices about my life I realized that others had equal amount of ability and responsibility to choose as well.  This mattered to me because I no longer believed that God was influencing my or others' every choice and suddenly personal responsibility became a factor.

It is a huge shift to go from living in a bit of paranoia, trying not to "step outside God's will for my life" to experiencing the blessed, refreshing freedom of there not being a wrong decision.

The way I experience my relationship with God now is like I experience my kids when they have a few toys in front of them to choose from.  Red car or blue truck?  I don't have an opinion of which Connor should choose, I am just fascinated watching him figure it out himself.  I love watching him in his joy or frustration of the experience and will gladly advise him if he comes to me for help.  If not, I watch and smile.

The reason I bring up the idea of allowing others to say no is because sometimes others do.  People who have committed to us may be saying yes with their mouths and no with their actions. By ignoring the pain of that experience it only causes us to run inside ourselves and live in a false reality.  It did for me, anyway.

So as I end this 3-part series on choices, these are the truths I cling to:

• God loves me by allowing me to choose him...or not
• Others are free to be in relationship with me...or not
• Actions speak louder than words and ideals
• One of the greatest things I can teach my children is that they accept responsibility for their choices
• It doesn't help anyone to shield someone from the consequences of their choices

Choices, Choices - Part 2 (Free to Say, "No")

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Yesterday I left off at The Turning Point of my life, where I was failing miserably at maintaining any kind of peace in my marriage and logically deducing that it meant I wasn't somehow aligning myself well enough with God's will for my life.  I believed everything would work itself out when I would start walking in step with the specific plans He had for me.  I knew commitment in marriage was king and I knew I was miserable.

Although at the time I wouldn't have phrased it like that.  I used "christian" words like "struggling, facing trials, being refined."  I boiled it down to my character needing some solid revamping and God was allowing me to go through the pain so I would be better on the other side.

It was such a disheartening place to be.  The God of the universe was giving me a hard core whipping, and I knew he was the epitome of love.  I could quote you chapter and verse from the Bible, so it had to be true.

Little doubts trickled in. I was so ready to make sense of it all that before I knew it my whole world had changed.  Truths like: "Until you are free to say, "no" you can not give a wholehearted, "yes.""

Wait, what was that?

Until you are free to say, "no" you can not give a wholehearted, "yes."

Ideas like "Love is a choice, if not it ceases to exist," and verses like, "Do two go together unless they have agreed to do so?" (Micah)  My view of God unraveled and revealed his true heart of love.  It has always been about a choice and being free to make it, yes or no.

My change of mind had to start with how I saw God.  Only from there did the understanding of how choice operates in love and relationship start to flow through my consciousness with others.  And the fog rolled away from my eyes: marriage commitment is a choice, not a duty.  Being in relationship with each other is a choice, not a duty.  Being in relationship with God is a choice, not a duty.

We are truly free to say, "no" to any of these choices.  We have to be to be able to say, "yes."

And if we are free in this way, others are too.

Part 3 tomorrow...(respecting others' freedom to say no)

Choices, Choices - Part 1 (Calvinism)

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Last weekend I was hanging out with some friends and the topic of God's will came up.  We talked about there being two ends of this spectrum in Christian circles, one being Calvinism, where everything is predetermined and even our choices are somehow already following the grander plan God has for us.  The other extreme is that God is not involved at all in our daily lives except to observe; the idea that he has set everything in motion but does not intervene.

I used to find great peace in the idea that everything was as it "should" be, that the choices I was making in prayer were fulfilling a very specific will God had for my life.

But then underneath it all the question always nagged at me: was it really God's will?  I never did have a foolproof way to test if it was God's leading versus my own desire.

I lived this way as I made a last minute decision to attend Oklahoma Christian University.  Three weeks before orientation started was when I applied, knowing that "if it was God's will" I would be accepted and it would all work out.  It worked out, "God's will."

Then I was dead set on doing mission work in New Zealand after graduating, but when those doors closed I thought, "This must be God's will" and jumped through the next open door that took me to Germany.

This pattern continued into how my relationship developed with my now ex-husband.  I prayed fervently that I would "do God's will" and recognize it along the way.  I had the sense that I was being carried along by something much greater than myself and my choices.

And then in the last, most difficult season of my marriage this belief had reached its pinnacle.  I would cry out to God, feeling certain that his will was that I stay committed, and praying that I would submit to that will despite my pain and "sinfulness."

Because that's where this logic had left me.  Believing that God had a perfect will for my life had left me blaming myself when things weren't going well.  It must be my problem that I couldn't somehow follow him well enough to fix things and "be aligned" with his plans for me.

Part 2 of this story to come tomorrow... (the one where I think outside the box)