Free will, gift or curse?

“One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, its remarkable how often their picture turns up on your driver's license.”
- P. J. O'Rourke

Free will is the greatest gift given to humans; it is also the greatest curse.

The reason it is the greatest gift….., it gives us the power to create the life we really want.

The reason it is the greatest curse….., too many of us don’t know how to use it wisely and therefore get stuck in a ‘blame’ mentality.

A quick note:
When I refer to God, it’s by no means excluding any other belief system. I believe he is known by many names; Source, Infinite Intelligence, etc. So wherever you see the word God, feel free to insert your own word if it makes for easier reading. And by referring to God in the masculine, I’m by no means being sexist, God is not male nor is he female, he’s both and he’s neither… It’s the same as referring to cars or ships as ‘she’, its just way I’ve always done things.
(And if you don't believe in anything, well then your whole existence must be one huge accident, are you an accident?)

As humans we possess three things, our mind, our body and our spirit. Our mind and body are temporary, they will eventually pass, but our spirit will continue to live forever. Unfortunately most of us neglect all three, or we pay attention to one or two of them, but to look after all three is just too much like hard work.

Mind
Our mind controls our body. The sub conscious mind is responsible for your bodily functions; breathing heart beat, the five senses, all the things we take for granted. The conscious mind is responsible for our thoughts, and we are thinking machines. Try and stop thinking for while, just sit there. And sitting there saying to yourself, ‘I’m not thinking’ means you are still thinking. It’s a lot more difficult than you think. (excuse the pun). If you hold on to a conscious thought for long enough, it eventually filters into your sub conscious, and if it is an unhealthy thought, it will create some form of disease in your body. More about that in another article.

Body
Our bodies are vessels for our mind and spirit; it’s the only one we’ve got. And how do we treat it? Mostly very poorly. God has provided everything we need for good health right here on planet earth, and yet we are still pumping our bodies full of chemicals and harmful products, and not only our bodies, but our home, planet earth.

Spirit
Our spirit, now that’s what we’re all about, it’s who we are beyond our ego. It’s the part of us that is connected to every other living thing in the universe and very closely connected with God. Can you remember a time when you saw something so beautiful it seemed that some of your senses switched off, can you remember how much joy you felt? Imagine being able to feel that kind of joy whenever you wanted to. Now that’s the real you, in that moment you had no worries, your mind and your ego were quiet. Sadly, very few of us know our spirit, our mind and our ego are too busy and we don’t set aside time to quieten them.

What does all this have to do with free will?

Well, whenever something goes wrong in our life, it’s usually because we have been neglecting our mind, body or spirit.

And there’s always a GOOD reason;
I don’t have the time.
I don’t have the money.
I don’t have the energy.
I’m too old.
I’m too young.
I’m too fat.
I’m too thin, etc.

And if none of these excuses are good enough, as a last resort, we blame God. It is actually the easiest thing in the world to blame God, he can’t defend himself against you, and it’s far easier than taking responsibility for anything yourself.

When you give someone a gift, and they don’t use that gift correctly, it’s a bit of a waste of a gift. Someone else could have benefited far more by receiving that same gift.

So my question to you is…… Has God wasted His gift of free will on you? If not, are you using this incredible gift wisely?

Remember, every time you make an excuse or blame someone / something for your situation you are giving away your free will & your power.

“God created the law of free will, and God created the law of cause and effect. And he himself will not violate the law. We need to be thinking less in terms of what God did and more in terms of whether or not we are following those laws.”
- Marianne Williamson

“There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.”
- Agatha Christie

“God is not willing to do everything, and thus take away our free will and that share of glory which belongs to us” - Niccolo Machiavelli