I'll quote a book that when I read it finally seemed to me a Biblical interpretation of God, free will, and predestination. See, I do not believe that God predestines each of our steps - I don't think that is Biblical. I think he has given us free will and if He predestines every step it negates free will:
From "Bright Evening Star" by Madeline L'Engle
"If we do not live in a predestined world does that take away from God's omnipotent power? No, no, it makes it all the more extraordinary! When God gave us free will, the Maker did indeed throw away power. When Christ came to us as Jesus, that was an even more radical throwing away of power. But that's what a loving God does! God throws away power over and over again while we greedily grab for it. A lover wants to be loved by the beloved. not to wield power, but to love hoping that the love will be returned in the same way. When we are caught up in power we are not free, but in bondage to the power we have grasped. God is completely free because power has been laughingly thrown away in order that love may reign. The throwing away of power requires enormous power. "
I don't think that God knows everything that is going to happen, and even if He does He most often does not interfere. I don't think He "allows" bad things to happen to people to test them or to discipline them. I don't think someone gets cancer because God knew that they could "handle it", or that it was His way of having someone draw closer to Him. I believe that we live in a fallen world, a fallen world means that God allows the world to continue in it's natural order: natural disasters happen, people die, people get sick, women are infertile, men rape, bad things happen. God does not purposely allow these things, He does however allow the world to run it's natural course. But He is there after, to hold your heart, to comfort you, to bring peace, to possibly perform a miracle. My way of thinking make God even more powerful, if God doesn't predestine our steps - yet can accomplish Romans 8:28 and still work things together for the good of those that love him - well He is truly amazing!
Yet what is this "good" spoken of in Romans 8:28? The Greek word here is Agathon. From Babylon:
The good (principle), the highest or supreme good in a moral sense, summum bonum; Plato's name for that aspect of the divine otherwise called the unmanifest or First Logos. Although sometimes equated with atman, which corresponds to the Greek pneuma, paramatman is a better equivalent for to agathon. It is likewise equivalent to the Buddhist alaya (the indissoluble or everlasting).What does this mean in a practical sense?
When I was a pastor a woman came to us that made my struggles look like a pittance. She had come from a civil war in Africa. She had scars all over her arms where someone in the resistance had taken a machete and killed her baby even though she tried to protect him by wrapping her arms around him. Her family was taken away from her to war camps and she was left alone, homeless, and wounded. She was blessed and was able to find a way to come to the United States. Fifteen years later she was reunited with her husband and her children that made. it. This woman was highly educated, she was a doctor in her country. She came here and had to get a crummy job, yet the love of Jesus shown through her despite all she had been through. Her heart was good.
Yet, what of those believers that died in the war camps? What if she hadn't been reunited with her husband and her surviving children - would God still have been good? Yes, because God works in our hearts, if the only good that God is able to do is comfort us as we die, after we have lost everything - then God is still working for our good - because He loves us.
Good is not things, or health, or the desires of our hearts, good is what God does with our hearts. Yes, He can give us good things, and in America we are so so SO blessed with health and material things and even good circumstances. But if all that is taken away? Most here would question God's goodness - because we have equated God's goodness with those things.
I believe God's goodness is what He does in our hearts. It is our hearts that He changes, not always our every move, our every step. How much more are we able to love Him, how much more important is it to be in daily communication with Him if it is our hearts He truly cares about and can change? To be more like Him, is completely about our hearts, not our circumstances.
Faith, true faith, is when everything is taken away from you and you can still trust that there is a God that loves you, a God that cares, even as you are dying alone and destitute. Even if the world has defeated you and completely broken you, evil can not win if God still has a hold of your heart and nothing can take that away. God's love is still more powerful than evil, because what He can do in a person's heart is that powerful.
This is what I believe, this is how I was able to reconcile my faith with the trials I have experienced. This is how I was able to believe in God again after He didn't wave His magic wand and make everything all better. God, in my ultimate moments of brokenness was able to hold my heart. He is so powerful that when I despised life, when I wanted to die, when I tried to end my life, when I held my dead baby, when I was being raped, when my best friend died, when all the horrible things in my life that have happened to me - I still knew that God was there for me. How powerful and loving is He! How amazing that He could still hold my heart! How powerful His love that even though the world truly broke me, I still trust in Him. He does work all things together for my good, because in my heart I still have love and I still have hope. I sometimes fear everything being taken away from me - like Job, yet I still believe that God is powerful enough to hold my heart no matter what.
I once screamed at my husband in one of my darkest hours, "I don't believe in God anymore!" God was there, working in my heart even then, allowing me to feel my anger, allowing my doubt, allowing me to process my grief and hurt. Going back to that Madeline L'Engle quote, God is a patient lover, He waits and woos, and comes on strong when we need it and backs off when we need that too. He will wait and wait and try and try. He is kind and will not force His way into your heart, but ever so gently will show you His love. He is there to hold your heart.
What if a lover has nothing to give, is that lover's love worthless? If you receive nothing material from your lover, but you lover values you, supports you, is always there for you do you cast off the love because they have nothing material to give? Some will. But if a lover knows your heart, there is support there that no material positions or physical benefits could match. To be loved unconditionally, so much so that you are made whole despite all you have been through and your imperfections is more powerful than all the riches in the world.
And that is how I am able to have faith in Him now and truly believe that He does work all things together for the good of those that love Him.
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