One very interesting thing to think on through your years is Free Will.   How free am I.  In Gen 1 when God created Adam and Eve, he created  them in his own image.  This is Father talk.  (Claire is in my image, literally in many ways.)   He let them run Naked, he walked with them in the Garden, he gave them only 1 rule.  Don’t eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  He didn’t warn them about a talking snake, he didn’t warn them about where the snake would come from.  From what we can tell he only told them you will surely die.  He didn’t have to put the tree there, he could have controled them with only good and good choices, rather than bad and good…..

— Alan Smith

This kind of a non controlling God is all over the place in the Bible.

That same type of freedom still applies today.  He let me choose off of him for 25 years and just about drive my second marriage into the ground for many of the same reasons I drove the first one in.  He lets someone I know drink heavily on top of having un-treated hepititus C, all the while sneaking in Hydrocodone which has Tylenol in it.  Everyone knows Tylenol and drinking are very bad for a liver, add some hep-c to that and diabetes…..  I could give other extreme exampes and I am sure all of you have the same.

In the same vein of logic he will let you attend mens small groups for the next 5  years, not invest a thing of yourself into it, not come with any thoughts prepared to share and after 60 years you are pretty much the same person you were spiritually 5 years ago…..

On the other side of this coin is self control and control in general.  We can’t really control each other no matter how hard we try… AND HOW WE TRY!!!!   I can’t control anyone to participate, all I can do is invite.  There is a lot of thinking out there both within the Christian World and without that God Controls us…. and he is the only one who really could IF he wanted to…  But Self Control is a Fruit of the Spirit…

So you are free and if you have the Spirit and I trust you do, you have everything you need to be a full participant in your own transformation of yourselves and then others….

I hope these thoughts might make you think about your participation in any small group you are involved in.

Peace