On Proverbs 3:5–6 from the Old Testament's Book of Proverbs (KJV—King James Version)—
5. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
The meaning:
5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not rely upon your own understanding.
6. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths aright.
We often fail to notice—how, inch by inch, we have drifted onto a path we never imagined at the outset. Then comes that unsettling thought: "What am I really doing here?"
From a religious or philosophical vantage, many of us gaze skyward and recall Proverbs 3:5—"Do not depend on your own comprehension. Always acknowledge Me, and I shall set your path straight." Or Caroline Myss's wry observation comes to mind: "If you want to know whether God has a sense of humor, tell Him your plans."
In this lies a troubling truth: free will is not always a blessing. Herein lies the ancient quarrel—free will, or determinism?
In our lived experience, we carry within us a DGS (Divine Guidance System)—much as a car carries GPS. We can choose to ignore it, can convince ourselves that we know best. Yet some fortunate souls learn to attune themselves to this DGS, and they navigate life with ease and joy. Others catch glimpses of it now and then. Many more remain unaware of its existence, deny it outright, or deliberately keep it switched off.
The reach of free will extends thus: yes, we possess it. We are free to choose wrongly, or rightly. We can stumble into despair through error, or if our choice is sound, we can bloom in gladness.
Yet here is the paradox: every decision we make and every consequence that follows will ultimately deliver us to that place where God wills us to be—into His presence and His fellowship.
In the end, we are all caught in God's "Wanted: Dead or Alive" poster. The game is on!
# The Inconvenience of Free Will There is something deeply troubling about the concept of free will. Not in the abstract, philosophical sense—that is a problem for the academies—but in the lived, everyday sense. It troubles us the way a stone in the shoe troubles a traveler: not catastrophically, but persistently, making every step slightly painful. Consider the person who has made a choice and must now live with its consequences. He tells himself: I chose this. I am responsible. And in that moment, a peculiar weight settles upon him. He cannot blame circumstance, or heredity, or the times he lives in. He cannot say, "I was made this way." He can only say, "I did this." The freedom to choose becomes the burden of choice. This is the inconvenience free will imposes: it strips away excuses. It places us face to face with ourselves. If our actions were determined—if we were merely puppets of fate, or neurology, or social conditioning—there would be a strange comfort in it. We could pity ourselves. We could say, "What else could I have done?" But free will allows no such sanctuary. It says: you could have done otherwise. Therefore, you are guilty. Therefore, you must answer. Yet here lies a peculiar contradiction. The more we examine free will, the more it seems to dissolve under scrutiny. Every choice appears to have antecedents. Every decision seems rooted in prior causes—our character, our desires, our circumstances. Can we truly choose what we are? Can we choose what we desire? And if not, how are we free? We find ourselves caught between two impossibilities: the impossibility of freedom (for what choice is truly uncaused?), and the impossibility of its absence (for we cannot help but feel ourselves to be choosing). We live in this gap. We are condemned to freedom, as someone once said, and we are also condemned to question it. Perhaps this is why free will is so inconvenient. It is not a luxury we enjoy; it is a burden we bear. And unlike other burdens, we cannot set it down. We carry it with us in every decision, every moment of deliberation, every sleepless night when we wonder if we chose rightly. The stone remains in the shoe. The traveler walks on.
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