Choice is essential. It is a *vital part of what gives us innate value. Our dignity is tied to our freedom to choose i.e. free choice is an essential part of our significance. Without it, we are programmed robots who do not pursue God freely.
However, our choosing rebellious independence with its negative consequences shows the necessity of choosing God vs attempts at being our own god. We may be free to choose but we are not free from the consequences of that choice. Through painful consequences, we hopefully learn to willingly and delightfully choose God's way - as we were designed to - over our own way, the way of independence from God.
Both our free choice and our choosing the right direction are vital i.e. we can choose whatever we wish, but the consequences of those choices are according to our design. To act contrary to that design – contrary to how God designed us – is to suffer loss i.e. to lose God, and all that comes with knowing Him.
Our freely choosing the right direction is God’s aim. He wants us to choose freely but also correctly. He doesn't want us to choose living contrary to our design, but neither does he desire we be automatons. He lets us choose freely. He desires we choose both rightly and freely.
It is truly our choice whether to pursue God but our dignity and the **strength and greatness of *our value – our innate worth - make this a **difficult and ongoing process. We must be weaned from being our own god and persuaded to freely pursue the only true God. To keep our dignity intact God does not force or program us to choose him. It is only in freely choosing God we can truly and fully experience all God intended and designed us to be.
This process is not difficult for God but for us. Choosing to be our own god has so **deeply and subtly bound up our heart in unbelief, we are slow to relinquish our independence and submit to God in total dependence/trust. We are slow to believe someone is wiser than us and trust He cares more about us and is better able to provide what's best for us than we can - especially when it looks like the opposite is happening.
Our challenge is we are both free but also dependent - far more dependent than we are willing to recognize or admit. We believe to be truly free we must be independent and to be dependent we can no longer be free. God however knows our Greatest joy - and his greatest glory in and through us - comes when we freely and delightfully (willingly) choose dependence on God and not ourselves. Not to minimize us, but just the opposite... so we will be and experience all he created us to be and freely recognize God for who He truly is - the source of life, love, and all things. The irony is, when we do, we experience our greatest purpose and meaning - i.e. we are maximized, if you will when we are most humble. To say it as the bible does, to live we must die.
So on the one hand we must completely have free choice to be the *true image-bearers of God we were designed to be, yet our will must be totally in submission to our Creator **in order to fully display that image and experience who we are to the maximum of our design and to our Greatest Joy. Our submission to God must be done both freely and fully to experience God to the greatest extent possible and properly honor Him according to His true worth. We are created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever at the same time. Though these may be distinct, because of how God made us, neither happens without the other.
The following links are a further discussion on related matters...
We are created for glory
Does God value us?
For a further discussion on choice, click here.
Why freedom of choice is important click here
How sovereign is God? Click here.
Giving and receiving glory
Do we have a "free" will or are we heavily influenced? Click here
The value of paradox and truths in tension click here.
The question of fairness click here.
The necessity of mercy click here.
Is the election and wrath of God unreasonable? click here.
The practical importance of God's electing grace click here
How we are free to choose yet bound, click here.
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*The more aligned with God's will and design, the more we experience our true significance and greatest joy. The more we freely choose God the more we honor him. For this reason – i.e. His own honor/glory - God will not violate our choice. This is so we might gain the most out of our participation in the community of Father, Son, and Spirit i.e. experience God to the maximum potential without our actually being God.
**Our ability to choose is at the heart of who we are and an essential part of our innate value. If we choose wrongly, the necessity and importance of having choice does not go away, choice only becomes misdirected. The challenge is our being redirected to choose correctly again. The primary reason for this challenge is choice is so essential to our makeup, our misdirection (rebellion) is equally as strong in the wrong direction as it is in the right direction (submission). The strength of our rebellion is equally as powerful as the joy of our willful submission. To have the ability to enjoy God as great, our ability to refuse God must be equally great.
