I have often been asked why I thought God created us like we are. We come into the world without any real understanding of the meaning of life and have to struggle a lifetime to come to a real understanding.  To me it seems that God understands that there is something very valuable in the process of learning. In this process I still retain my free will. I truly believe that free will is perhaps the greatest gift that God has given us. While I feel that the power to think is a great gift, I know that free will far exceeds this ability. Our free will truly makes us different from the angels and other living beings. We can not only think but have the power to choose what we believe.

Granting humankind free will, I believe, signifies true love. It clearly tells us that God does not desire slaves to serve Him but, rather, free daughters and sons to love Him. God was willing to take the risk of us rejecting Him so that any love we might extend to Him is freely given! This also means that He had to allow for the possibility that we might be distracted by the things of this world and fail to respond to His love.

During the years of my ministry I have discovered that we humans are truly fickle.  We choose to ignore God and seek the things of this world until we face a real challenge. Then, when we begin to fear that something bad might happen to us, we quickly turn our attention to Him (there is an old saying: there are no atheists in a foxhole).

I have also found that people quickly state when they encounter sickness or disappointment: why is God doing this to me. They don’t seem to say this when their life is free of any real challenges. Why don’t we love Him always?

So life is meant to help us learn that God truly loves us by providing multiple opportunities to learn how to hope and trust in Him. We, however, always have a choice because of free will. We are called to love God in good and bad times.

Христос Воскресe