I was recently asked an amazing question the other week. Does God change his mind? This is a loaded question and one I have been struggling with for awhile. As for a lot of things in life, it's always good to dive into scripture to see. Now this question has been raised many times throughout the years and is part of the debate of Calvinism vs Arminianism. Now those two words opens up a huge can of worms that sadly I believe it's not healthy. Because of this, I will only briefly describe the two schools of thoughts and then help shed light on the main question.
Calvinism centers on the supreme sovereignty of God, predestination, the total depravity of man, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints.while
Arminianism emphasizes conditional election based on God's foreknowledge, man's free will through prevenient grace to cooperate with God in salvation, Christ’s universal atonement, resistible grace, and salvation that can potentially be lost.
These descriptions were not of my own but I think they summarize them up fairly well, I do, however want to add that Calvinism believes that God elected people and those elected by God will go to heaven while Arminianism believes that it is up to the individual to accept Christ and be saved. In other words, God has chosen who he wants in heaven beforehand (Calvinism) while the other side argues only the person can choose to go to heaven (Arminianism).
Can you see why this would be such debate in Christianity? The weird thing is if you look, you will find both cases you in the Bible. Some may ask or be skeptical and say perhaps "see the Bible is contradictory." I'd respond with a no. See there are times where God needed a certain individual to rise above the expectations of themselves and follow God's path to show His almighty power. Or God needed someone to pave a way for someone else, I.E. John the Baptist. It was decided before John was born that he would help the Messiah, and he did. Now not everyone was chosen like this, for example, the women who was healed from her internal bleeding because of her faith (Mark 5:21-34) it was her faith in Christ that saved her. Not God choosing. Some could say that God wanted her to touch Jesus at this specific time from the time she was born, but listen to what Jesus says in verse 34 'He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering."' That seems like a clear statement to me.
In other words both sides, have some truth to God's personality but they only seem to be half truths. Before you ponder too much, please consider this question. Was it God's intention for his people to be separated by these two train of thoughts? I feel like this debate is similar to that of listening to a hockey game or football on the radio. We can hear what is going on so we make assumptions of how the players would look running with the football or shooting the puck, but the only people who can really tells us what happened at the game are the people at the game. In the same sense, we can talk about the God of the bible (listening to the radio) but if we do not spend time with Him and his Word (at the game), then we miss who God really is.
Now back to the original question, does God change his mind? I can really only speak about me and other peoples experiences. I would probably say No, but I think God changes His Will for us based off our ignorance of Him. What I mean is, I think God has a plan, it has been laid out for many many years (read Revelations) but since he wants to use us humans who are full of sin, we often don't follow God's plan. Good thing God has Grace for us, because even though we may not always follow God's Will, he is always trying to bring us back on the path. A great example of this, is young people who basically do shotgun weddings. Now I know I am still young, but please understand that, I have met people who make a drastic decision that not only affects them but, friends, family, and more importantly God. To go out and marry someone that may have not been God's Will for you, is basically forcing God to change his Will because of that selfish act.
Something God has taught me this past year, is regardless of how I see my future, if I follow God's path he will show me a future much brighter than I could ever imagine. Don't settle for your dreams which are mediocre compared to what God has in store.... if you allow him. Just think of what would have happened in John the Baptist didn't pave the way for Jesus, or if Jesus would have said "yes" to Satan when Satan offered him all the kingdoms on earth.
