Choice & Free Will

Of all things created, only human kind was given free will; the ability to choose or not to choose.

This is about choice and thus responsibility.  If I have the ability to choose, and have chosen, then everything that has occurred in my life has been as a result of my choices.  Therefore, given I made the choice, then how can I then turn around and blame people, places and things for the apparent bad things that have occurred in my life, when in fact they have occurred because I chose them?

That just doesn’t make sense – if being logical about it.  Why would I choose for the bad things to happen in my life?  Could it be because I made the choice without consciousness; without even thinking about the very fact I was choosing.  Have I spent most of my existence as a human being unconscious? In logic I would have to conclude that I have been unconscious most of my life, or insane?  After all, who in his/her right mind, being sane, would choose to have things like divorce, death, joblessness, illness, etc., happen, become a part of his or her life?  Can I then go a step further and say that choices made unconsciously are insane choices?  I think it is safe to make that statement because nobody in his right mind would choose to have bad things happen.

Is most of the world, humanity, therefore insane; that is, existing in unconsciousness?  I would have to conclude that it is, because look at the rate at which we are destroying all of the good things – thus choosing the negative?  If that isn’t insanity, then I do not know what is!

So what is the solution?  I am not here to solve the world’s woes; I can only try as best I can to figure out my own.  Why have I chosen (unconsciously) the life I have lived to this point?  I don’t believe I willingly chose it knowing it would be bad in the sense of the pain and suffering caused to self and those whom I profess to love.  Therefore, to the point where I knew not that I was unconscious, can I be absolved of my wrong doings, forgiven?  I like to think that yes I can, because my God, my Abba would not harshly condemn a man or woman who had no idea, no conscious idea, that their choices were not the right choices.

But, from the point where the light gets turned on, when you begin to see the light of day, I believe that you are indeed truly accountable and responsible for your choices.  As Scripture says, “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

YHWH created me with free will, and I think I and the rest of humanity lost it on that fateful day in the garden.  I believe that the storehouse of treasure that Malachi speaks of happens to be what has been locked up in our minds, because the power and the awesomeness of what is there would be deadly in the hands of a human who was living an unconscious life.  But, it’s not a grand thing that is sought, but a simple thing.

I choose to seek the Will of my Creator that my life might unfold in a conscious way.  In thus choosing, no longer asleep and nothing but the dry bones spoken of in Ezekiel; but filled with the Living Waters that spring forth eternal, I can consciously step out into the today that is before me and be fully alive in the second of my breath.

Ezekiel 37:4 Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! ⁵ This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath ^[a] enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’ “

I’ve lived a thousand years and yet not at all.  I’ve never been fully alive, and admit to running away from life, be it in relationships, work and sundry other distractions and numbing activities …anything to distract from seeking within, from fully experiencing the moment, when the essence of who I am, the sensory feelings, the energy started to peep through, became too much to bear.  Is anything felt, I mean being truly alive, either good or bad?  Do I choose to call it bad because of a sensory feeling that makes me uncomfortable?  Is my essence good or bad, or is it simply IS?  I live in a world that tells me that pain is bad and to be avoided and that being high and not a care in the world is the ultimate goal and inherent right of every human being.  Says who; the guy in the beer commercial, the lottery owners?

Can being alive be bought, be purchased at the price of….your soul, your spirit?  Look at yourself, as I look at my thousand year life to-date, and be honest.  Every time I’ve acquired that person, place or thing that I felt I must have to make me complete, to feel just perfect and in control and “ain’t the world sweet;” well, something else would come along that I just needed to have, do or be, in order to feel that feeling of wholeness, completeness.

If I am truly Spirit, and I truly believe it to be so, then these words that I read this morning are indeed a simple statement of that truth:

“The best things in life aren’t things.”  Art Buchwald”

In closing I share some words that spring to mind, words indelibly engraved in my soul, words that I’ve often espoused, that have arisen on a timely basis, to remind me, just who is in control, and now I add, that I have choice, to accept or reject; to allow life’s energy to flow smoothly….

O my restless Soul be still.  Though this thing be not thy choice, accept it as His Will.

I can choose to stop trying to change people, places and things outside of self, and choose to take responsibility; thus I shall respond to whatever comes my way, instead of reacting!

This I choose.

Joshua 24:15 And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.