If I were an enemy of God I would want His little protoges feeling the defeat of numerous missed oportunities. Little ants scrambling to not miss another. Defeat, desparation, and opportunistic parasites forcing their own will and masquarading as God's will.

What a messed up psychological slash spiritual war. (yeah, I spelled out 'slash'. I get sassy when I get worked up.)

I think the denominations get people confused with their theology studies. I also believe we each have a journey with Christ and when He chooses for our eyes to be opened to something it will be well pleasing to Him. But we still have the freedom to choose nor not to choose Him. (But He already knows what we will decide.)

I also think He presents His opportunities to everyone, even when he knows they'll reject Him. He still stretches out his hand.

(other synonyms: supreme, absolute, unlimited, unrestricted, boundless, ultimate, total, unconditional, full; principal, chief, dominant, predominant, ruling; royal, regal, monarchical, independent, self-governing, self-determining; nonaligned, free.)

It's my own interpretation of what scripture is saying when it calls God sovereign. Scripture (NIV) calls God 'sovereign' 297 times.

My suggestions are influenced by scriptures like these:

What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don't do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. -Romans 9:11-12

We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but God's purpose prevails. -Proverbs 19:21

Your free will is not affected by His sovereignty. I have an example:

It's snack time for my daughter and I know what her options are. She can have carrot sticks or ice cream. I know she's going to pick the ice cream before she even know she has a choice or that it's snack time. Not only do I know she's going to pick it, but I have her bath run before she makes a mess with the ice cream and when I picked out her shirt that morning, I made sure to pick a dark color so her 'free will' choice didn't stain any of her clothes.

She only knows what she sees, but I'm her mom and I know her better than she knows herself. Even so, it didn't effect her decision making process whatsoever. I didn't even have to be in the vicinity for her to make that choice.

You have free will. You can choose whatever you want. Have you ever considered who is giving you the choices? And, are you certain that your creator has no idea what you're going to choose?

Whatever was, is. Whatever will be, is. That's how it always is with God. -Ephesians 3:15

God IS. He's beginning and end, He is sovereign, no matter how that feels to humans. He doesn't 'make' anyone do anything, He 'knows' and when evil takes place, He illuminates His sovereignty when He uses that very evil to work into his purpose. A person can have evil intentions, but can never win over the purpose of God.

Don't you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people. -Genesis 50:20

My interpretations can never take the place of a person's own journey and studies. It is my belief that we will never fully understand our relationship with God unless we look at all of the evidence, even when it makes us uncomfortable.

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. -Isaiah 45:7 (footnote from men smarter than me: Moral evil proceeds from the will of men, but physical evil proceeds from the will of God.)

God doesn't even need us to what the heck is going on to carry out His plan. His plan IS.

I hope I this makes sense. In the Grace Is For Sinners:Bible Study, we spend three of the six weeks covering this stuff.

I am, of course, *able* to make choices which directly go against the will of God – I am autonomous; to suggest otherwise is to subscribe to the theory of predestination. At that point, you are suggesting that God is among other things directly responsible for evil, in which case He is not infinitely Good, Just, etc.

Or is the point that one's unwillingness to submit to the will of God is to declare oneself the supreme 'being' over and above God? If that's the case, this my misunderstanding hangs on the use of the word "able."

I'm feeling quite hypoglycemic at the moment, so pardon me if I'm missing something.

At the end, be like Jesus, I learned recently to go further than that, die, so He can be Himself in me. That is better than me trying to be like Him. If we simply attempt to be 'like' him, we take on the nature of the original sin when Lucifer sought to be like him. I learned this in 'So Beautiful' by Leonard Sweet. I highly recommend his book and will be writing a review on it today.