The phenomenon is not new. Nor is it particularly rare. It goes by many names, the most recognizable is the "Change of Location Solution."

I hate to be the one to break this to you, but it doesn't work.

I know. I packed enough boxes over the years trying that particular solution to know that it never works.

It started when I was only a child, upset once again at the news that we had to move. Again. My mother, trying to comfort me, encouraged me to look at it as a fresh start, an opportunity to meet and make new friends, an adventure.

This particular adventure always ended up the same way. And by the end of the first day at a new school, the verdict would be in. I was still me. And once again I had put my worst foot forward and the die was cast...

You would have thought, given the frequency of our moves, that I would have learned the hard truth by age 12.

Not me. Oh no. I'm a little thick-headed I guess. I kept trying. (There are those who say that one definition of insanity is someone who keeps doing the same things in the same way, all the while expecting a different outcome.)

This compulsion to change the circumstance of my life by changing where I lived led me down many different roads. Some of them were particularly dark roads I shudder to remember. It is the paradox of grace and free will, intermixed, that every situation ultimately was used by God to bring me to who I am and where I am today.

The concept of free will is a mystery lived out on a daily basis. Each day, we are faced with innumerable choices to make, some mundane, some with the potential to radically change our lives.

On just an ordinary Saturday during our ordinary lives, I headed to the local laundromat, weeks of dirty clothes packed into the VW. It was a gray and gloomy November day, with a raw wind blowing in a winter storm. The laundromat was packed with ill-tempered people, one of whom took me to task for my choice of folding areas. Young, impatient, and decidedly impulsive, I used the laundromat event, coupled with the first storm of the season to justify our heading, that very day, to the sunny climes of Florida.

That decision led us down a dark, even dangerous path, and it was all my own doing. I freely exercised my free will and, unfortunately, shared the harvest, with Danny and two good friends.

Every day, in the lives of every man, the paradox of free will is played out. No one sets out to become an alcoholic. No one sets out to become a drug addict. No one sits down and carefully maps out a life-plan that includes divorce, single parenting, or a stint in the "Big House." Yet the decisions made while exercising our free will have sometimes led people down these soul-consuming paths and sadly, some never know any measure of freedom again.

Was every path I took one ordained for me before time began? Hardly. What good is free will if everything is already decided ahead of time? One thing I do know, no matter how dark the road taken became, it was never so dark that God couldn't see me or reach me, to draw me back to the path he desires for every man. The path of repentance, restoration and reconciliation paved by the footsteps of his only Son.

It is God's own courage that gives us free will. It is a measure of the depth of his grace that he provides us with the opportunity to choose life, for as long as we live.

"Say to them, 'As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel?'" Ezekiel 33:11 (NIV)

Things you won't see in heaven:

Dead ends