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FREE WILL

A year and half ago I entered a very dark period of time. I watched as my life begun to fall apart. Everything that could go wrong did. I started to examine my life. Now I have always known who I was as a person. I never had to go through that whole "finding myself" thing. I don’t suspect I will ever need to go "Find myself" however as I examined my life the things that stuck out at me really made me sick. What really bothered me though was that I felt God just wasn’t listening to me. I had finally started praying again, something I stopped when I was a kid, and yet everything crumbled around me. I didn’t ask for anything I just prayed for those around me. Their lives got worse and mine was a mess. I then started thinking. I have heard and seen so many horrible things. Let’s take the mother who took her infant child and baked him the oven. Where was God? Why did he let it happen? How could he? Why is it that nine year Jessica Lunsford dies but that creepy evil bastard who raped her and buried her alive in back yard lives! Why? Well, I found the answer. When I did my whole life changed and my entire way of thinking. The answer is Free Will.

Free Will is the essence of life. It is the main ingredient. Many think love is the answer. It’s not. Without Free will there is no love. We choose to love. Free will gave us freedom. This freedom was given to us by God. This is what created the United States of America and in return spread freedom throughout the rest of the world. Free will gives us the power to make our own choices and decisions and face the consequences of our actions good or bad. Free will is what is behind most wars. We choose to go or not to and the reasons for most wars are because one side is being oppressed and they either fight the oppressors or have help in doing so. A murderer as the choice not to kill. Every single living thing on this planet has been given Free will by God.

The best way to explain is to use a murderer as the example. Let’s say "Bob the killer" has his eye on an eleven year old girl. He wants to rape her and then kill her. Raping and killing a little girl is wrong. It is wrong in society and wrong in God’s eyes. Killer Bob presses on, exercising his Free will, and commits the horrible act. Now he may get caught by society and punished or he may never get caught while he lives among us, next door to us. When he does finally die God will punish him. The question that comes to us and those effected by what he did is "Why? Why did you let this happen? Why her? Why didn’t you protect her?" The answer is Free will. We can ask "why did that bastard do it" and then try to stop other bastards from doing the same thing. We can’t blame God however.

When God gave us Free will he was fair. He gave it to all living things. He wanted all of us to live free but know that their will be consequences if we abuse it. If God would have stepped in and saved that girl he would have taken away her free will and the killers free will. If he takes away their free will then he can do it to anyone. God also would be a liar because he gave us all free will but then lied and took it away? He is not liar therefore free will stays. It’s what makes the world go around. Free will and temptation go hand in hand. It is our great test in life. When we die we will face those decisions and how we chose to use our free will and fight or not fight temptation. It’s so simple yet so big.

Free will gives us the choice to love or to hate. Say boy loves girl but girl doesn’t love boy. Boy gets upset and yells at God "Why can’t someone love me? Why God? I just want to be loved." Four years later boy still is not loved by a girl. Is it because God is being cruel and perhaps finding humor in his situation? No. It free will, he can’t step in. He can only guide us and be there to listen. Just like a parent or guardian when you were in school. They can be there when you do your home work but they can’t give you the answers. That’s up to you.

Free will is our everything. It is unfortunate that not everyone gets to be free however they still have free will and they can use it to fight for their freedom regardless of what happens good or bad. That’s how the United States came to be. Our forefathers had a bounty on their head if they went through with the Declaration of Independence. It was ordered by England that if they signed the declaration it would be an act of treason punishable by death. They signed it anyways because they knew it was the right thing to do even if it meant death.

A year and half ago when I realized what free will truly is my entire way of thinking changed. I was angry with God for allowing everything to fall apart around me. Things that were happening were not of my doing so who was doing it. It could only be God. I couldn’t understand why God hated me so much. The thought made me miserable and wanting give up on everything but as I was thinking and dissecting free will I begun to realize that none of it was God’s fault. It is what it is. Life is life. God gave us free will and life became a breathing living organism made up of all sorts of living things. It is free to live as it chooses under God’s gift of free will. God can not step in or free will is over. I felt relieved, calm. I stopped getting angry at God. I stopped blaming. When something horrible happened to someone instead wondering why God would allow this I knew it was just what it was. It was life good or bad. I also stopped believing in destiny. If we are all free to live how we choose then how can there be a destiny? Perhaps we do each have a purpose and a direction we are suppose to get to but that doesn’t mean we will. Free will can stop us. Some drunk bastard, who used his free will, steps behind the wheel of his car and ends up crashing into you and kills you. Your so-called destiny will never be. So if destiny is a fact then is it our destiny die at the hands of a drunk driver? I also no longer believe in good or bad luck. It is what it is.

It is my belief that if everyone starts to really understand free will then perhaps you too will have a new way of seeing things. It has changed me for the better. I feel more clam and at peace. Not every day is good mind you and it still feels like everything is standing in my way as I move forward. I still feel like a giant hand keeps pushing me back but it’s just the way life is. Last year I felt more like myself than I have in years. Life felt normal again. At the end of the year I reached success that I didn’t know was possible. It was amazing how things fell into place. Finally, after all of these difficult years and hard work I was facing a better life. This year has been difficult but with that I am still in a much better place and there’s no looking back. I also feel closer to God because I understand what he gave us so much more and cherish it. Now tomorrow the roof could come crashing down on top of my head but that doesn’t mean God did it.

Life is a gamble of chances. Everything we do is us taking a chance. Driving to the store to get milk is a chance. We can be killed on the way. Taking a swim in the pool could lead us to drowning. Eating chocolate cake could lead us to choking to death. Asking the person you have fallen in love with to marry you could lead to a painful answer. We could, however, drive to store and run into our long lost love who turns out is single, we date, we marry, have kids, grandchildren, and die together at the nice age of 124 years old. We could take a swim and get cooled off on a scorching day which prevents us from having a heat stroke, eat the best chocolate cake ever and live to tell about it. The chances we take is just the way it is. Life is what it is. We take our chances and see what happens. There is no reason to be angry or hateful. There is no reason to blame God. We just take our chances using our free will.