You may have thought that if God can do anything, then why doesn’t He do it?

You may wonder why there is illness and heartache and why isn’t peace on Earth complete? You may wonder why God doesn’t just rush in and fix everything to a T.

You have lots of questions, even complaints.

Perhaps, given the choice, to give free will or predestination, you would choose predestination.

I chose free will.

You may say that yes, there is free will, and yet there also seems to be predestination, and you may ask why is life that way.

Yes, certainly, there is a tide of life, beloveds, and you are swept up in it. You may ask that, caught in the maelstrom of a flood, what does your free will have to do with it? You may say that sometimes it seems that your free will doesn’t count for much and that you don’t actually feel free at all. You found yourself in a certain location born to a certain family, and so much transpired that was not of your choosing. Where was free will then, and where is it now?

Let Me ask you a few questions. If you had the deciding power, would you lay life out in a pristine fashion? Would you make everything predictable and safe? Would you really make life a sure thing? Would everyone live to be the same age? Would the time of death be known? Would every child begin to talk at the same age?

If you had the deciding factor and chose a perfect life, what questions would you be asked? Perhaps, you would be asked why doesn’t anything ever happen? Why isn’t there anything to bet on? What happened to zest in life? What happened to good fortune -- was it sacrificed so there would be no misfortune?

Perhaps your constituents would throw up their hands and say, Why, this life is no better than a robot’s. What would you say then?

If you had this choice to make, and you chose a laid-out path, you might later wake up and be glad that it was only a dream you were having.

The fact is you want everything two ways. You want surprise in life at the same time as you want to choose your surprises. You don’t want danger of any kind, and yet you crave adventure and excitement. You want a safe ride, and you don’t want boredom. You want life to be predictable without being predictable.

It is not so easy to make these decisions over life and death, is it?

If you had to vote now for life as it is or life as your presumed ideal, which would you vote for? When all is said and done, which would you vote for?

You may ask if there couldn’t be a compromise of some kind. Just eliminate illness and war, and leave everything else the same.

You know, beloveds, you have the free will to eliminate illness and war. Yes, you. In fact, you have chosen to in your hearts, and illness and war are disbanding. They can’t exist where they are not wanted. When enough Human Beings on Earth are finished with their exploration of illness and war, illness and war will no longer exist.

Do not think that you have no power, nor think that your power is little. You have great power. You can accomplish miracles with your heart alone. You can make this world the way you want it to be. You do have free will. Use it, beloveds, use it.