Reckless love - a pinball analogy of free will provided by a sovereign God

How do we reconcile free with pre-determination of a sovereign God? A pinball machine, of course! 🤣

First, let’s establish some of the lesser known components of a pinball machine:

Playfield - the area beneath the glass where the game takes place

Plunger - the lever initiating the entrance of the ball into the game.

Drain - where the ball always ends up once the game is over.

Flippers - positioned at the center of the drain with capacity to prevent/delay the ball from exiting that section. The flippers have no capacity to prevent the ball from exiting out the edges of the drain.

Inlane - the path in the playfield that leads the ball to the center of the drain where the flippers are located; the sustaining lane!

Outlane - the path on the outer edges of the playfield where the ball is no longer within reach of the center portion of the drain or flippers. The dead end lane.

The Pinball Analogy

God is both the plunger and the drain. The beginning & end. The initiator & destination. What God puts into motion will always return to where it came from.

We are the ball that God puts into motion to enter the playfield, which represents our temporary life on Earth.

The bumpers represent pain. The points represents the accumulation of pain.

The rubber rings, ramps & holes found throughout the playfield represent sin. They will always lead to more bumpers.

The center of the drain represents Heaven, the God-desired destination for us. The outer edges of the drain is Hell.

The inlane represents Jesus, the only path designed to get us to Heaven.

The outlane represents death, the path of irretrievable game over out of God’s reach.

The flippers represent our fate in the game.

God allows us control of our journey, but only within the confines He created.

The quality of the journey will be based on the movement of the ball, influenced by the flipper.

God could prevent the flippers from moving to allow the ball to roll down the inlane without being impeded. But that was not the intended mechanism set up according to His will for how the game should be played.

Free will is the buttons on the sides of the machine.

That’s what gives the game meaning. Ultimately God owns the flippers, as He owns everything. But he gives us control of where our ball goes by giving us free will buttons to use.

If we reject the gift of the inlane by using our free will flippers to continually move our ball with our own strength, we will get caught in the traps of sin, and risk finding ourselves in the outlane of death.

The ball will likely still hit a few bumpers on the way down even without fighting the design by pushing our flippers. Pain is just a part of life. The flippers are allowed to influence the game, but have limited control of where the ball goes.

The whole point of the plunger setting something in motion is to experience something. Our creator is a relational God!! He desires a meaningful relationship, filled with meaningful experiences, with all of us!!

Enjoy the experience. But don’t fight the intended path. It was designed for our benefit!