Let us start with the first on God’s omnipotent. Here is my full disclosure. I believe fully in God’s sovereignty and predestination yet I also believe fully in free will. The percentage would be 52% freewill and 48% predestination. Now, God holds both of these issues in perfect tension. I am not God, so I can’t perfectly reconcile all of this.
Here is why I lean slightly towards the freewill side because in scripture, Jesus asked people to follow him. They looked in his eyes and walked away. (Matt. 19:21-22; Luke 9:57-62). On the God level, you would say that Jesus knew that those people would not follow him. However, on our human level, I think Jesus is asking them to follow him and they are exercising their freewill and saying “no”.
It is what I once heard some say. “When we get to heaven there will be a sign above the gate that says, “For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” [Romans 10:9 (NLT)] however, after we walk through the gate, we turn back the gate reads, “You didn't choose me. I chose you.” [John 15:16 (NLT)] This sums up my view of this
However, because I tend to be confusing, here is an analogy that my help. Imagine our life is a book with God as the author. (Everyone has a book and God wrote them all.) God knows the whole book, how it ends, what are decisions will be made. We know this because God is Omnipotence, Omniscient, and Omnipresence.
• Omnipotence (literally, "all power") is power with no limits or inexhaustible, in other words, unlimited power.
• Omniscient means the state of knowing everything
• Omnipresence means God is eternal, and therefore not limited by time, and not limited by space (Psalm 139:7-10; Proverbs 15:3; Jeremiah 23:23,24). He is universally present to all of space at all time.
OK, if you are buying that, let me continue with the analogy. Therefore, our life is a book. God knows everything in there. However, we are the reader and we do not know what is happening until we turn the page (or make a decision – which is the same). However, I think when God interacts with us, we deals with us on the page we are on.
For example, if I am struggling with deciding to follow God and go get a PhD. God will deal with me on that decision, even though he knows what I will decide, and where I will be in ten years. He does not criticize me for not knowing the future, but he deals with me with where I am. He helps me make my decision today to trust him and go to grad school.
It is the same when we interact with someone else. We do not know the ending of their book. We do not know if they will accept God or reject God. We do know that God has asked us to share his love with everyone. Therefore, we share with people hoping that they will choose to follow God. It is not our job to decide who will be saved. It is our job to share God’s love and let God do the convicting.
Now, I sense also in your question a need for assurance, since you ask about living a life and then finding out it was all in vain because you were not chosen. Here is a scripture that help me:
Col. 1:23 (NLT)
But you must continue to believe this truth and stand in it firmly. Don't drift away from the assurance you received when you heard the Good News. The Good News has been preached all over the world, and I, Paul, have been appointed by God to proclaim it.
Col. 1:27 (NLT)
For it has pleased God to tell his people that the riches and glory of Christ are for you Gentiles, too. For this is the secret: Christ lives in you, and this is your assurance that you will share in his glory.
Hebrews 11:1 (NLT)
What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.
God gives us assurance that we will be saved. The assurance you have it because you have Christ living in you. If God was not in you, you would be seeking him, you would not be asking these question. It is an issue of faith. We have to believe God’s word is true and Jesus is really living in our life. Satan wants to make you doubt your faith, and think you are not saved. (by the way, doubts are OK, event the disciples had doubts – Matt 28:18-20). Remember, So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. - Romans 8:1 (NLT)
Now about the question of pain, here is my answer to that question. First, I believe that God see pain, suffering and trial as a good thing. God does not see them as a negative. We see them as a negative and we try our whole life to avoid pain and suffering. Here are some Scriptures to think about:
Romans 8:17-22 (NLT)
And since we are his children, we will share his treasures—for everything God gives to his Son, Christ, is ours, too. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
18Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. 19For all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are. 20Against its will, everything on earth was subjected to God's curse. 21All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. 22For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
James 1:2-4 (NLT)
Dear brothers and sisters, whenever trouble comes your way, let it be an opportunity for joy. 3For when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be strong in character and ready for anything.
1 Peter 1:6-7 (NLT)
So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while.
7These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold. So if your faith remains strong after being tried by fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.
1 Peter 4:12-13 (NLT)
Dear friends, don't be surprised at the fiery trials you are going through, as if something strange were happening to you. 13Instead, be very glad—because these trials will make you partners with Christ in his suffering, and afterward you will have the wonderful joy of sharing his glory when it is displayed to all the world.
We can also add the story of Lazarus. Everyone saw death, Jesus saw an opportunity for God to be glorified.
These scripture show us that God uses trails and pain as opportunities for us to grow. He can use anything to help us grow, but he will not waste the pain in our life and make it meaningless. God always redeems pain and allows us to use it to help others.
God does not cause bad things to happen. Bad things happen because we live in a fallen world, people make bad choices and Satan wants to destroy us. However, God does not shield us from the bad and evil in this world, because he does not see pain and suffering the same way. He knows that sometime we can only learn things through pain or suffering. It is a great way to shape our character.
A book that could help is “the Problem of Pain” by CS Lewis. It deals specifically with this issue. (Actually, any book my Lewis is great, especially his Mere Christianity)
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