Venn(e) diagram

Thus far in my walk the topic of free will vs. predestination has come up many times.  It has been a tough concept for me to at least understand.  How a meta-narrative is going on behind the curtain yet all the choices of our free wills are happening on stage astounds me.  I've read quite a few books, listened to debates, listened to lectures and talked to many people on the subject and yet still struggled with it.  I'm a big fan of dispensationalism (the study of God revealing who He is to man in stages) so I thought I would talk about how this process has allowed me to finally come to terms on a very tough subject.

This is how I lived my life before God stepped in (although that's what He did over 2,000 years ago on a cross).  I believed that I was in control of my own destiny.  I wasn't a big believer in any current psychological trend of new age hokus-pokus.  My life and the way I lived it was based on facts.  Life sucks.  Everyone sucks.  We are just floating along on this pointless speck of a planet that was eons old and would be here eons from now.  I basically lived a life that met my needs.  Even the thought of a bigger picture view was foreign to me.  It actually made me angry because I heard people talk about it, but life was still pretty terrible.  I heard all these wonderful things and yet I was so hurt on the inside, so I logically decided that any idea of God did not exist and the people that did believe He existed were morons.  Needing to find purpose in their pathetic lives, they choose to believe in some "pie in the sky" hopes.  Not me.  I was smarter than that.

Although the "X" disappears with just a click of a mouse, it took a whole lot more in life.  To go from everything being my will to allowing predestination to come in was huge.  If you want to read about it, I talked about it in an earlier blog.
After life being what it was (see blog), I was at the point where I entertained ideas of a God.  Free will and predestination were two seperate entities that somehow were going on at the same time.  If you ever look at a discussion or lesson on it, there is always a "v.s." between the two.  So many times I hear these being discussed as two opposing concepts.  Looking at the above diagram (i apologize the quality, but it serves its purpose), this is how I thought for quite a while.  I've been saved for a little over two years now, and this diagram represents how I thought for at least the first 10-14 months.  I still struggled with many things.  If you could talk to anyone that was alongside me for that period of time would tell you that I was still a mess.  I had so many questions that drove me crazy.  There were many times of losing control, tears, anger, frustration and close calls with walking away.

I started to learn that there was a relationship between the two.  Although many problems in my theology, the small darkened area represents the acceptance of their co-existence.  I didn't understand, but I knew they were working together.  I remember having a theology like a meter, where the closer you were to the center, the more you were in God's will.  The further you leaned in either direction, the less the percentage got of being in His will.  Theology of standing in a hallway with thousands of doors, each one representing a different choice.  Behind each door were thousands and thousands of doors branching from each one representing the thousands of plans God had for each circumstance I created.  I would open a door, and He already had the next hallways ready to accommodate my choice.  Theology of thinking that free will was an illusion since God knew everything beforehand.  Free will only exists from my finite mind and viewpoint yet still completely pointless.  Nothing was required of me; no need to witness to that person since whether or not they are "chosen" has already been decided, regardless of what I say to them.
Once again, I believed this diagram/theology for a little while.  It's success could be seen by the fact that even after I was saved I fell into a backsliding state, resulting in horrible choices and consequences.  I still struggled.  Although not like before, there was still some restlessness.  I was still not happy with how I was perceiving God and His will.

This is where the whole thought process began which lead to this post.
Things I hear Christians saying:
"God allowed it to happen."
"God took away [fill in blank] because it was too important in their life."
"It wasn't God's perfect will but His permissive will."

The problem I have with this line of thinking is that it kind of hints at a theology where things happen and THEN God acts accordingly.  Like He is sitting there, watching and waiting, and then when the chips fall He uses His great wisdom to carry out His plan and desires.  Permissive and perfect will?!? What?!?
Like He is watching a movie and I should worship Him because He has the remote and can pause it whenever He wants to do what He wants.  It hits that certain "whatever" inside of me when someone's response to something bad happening in someone's life is "Well, He let it happen." 

I'm sorry, for me He doesn't "allow" anything to happen.  This is how my thought process works now: "God knew that [insert bad circumstance] would happen when it did, where it did, how it did in the EXACT way before the creation of the universe."  There is no such thing as "before" in eternity.  There is no time!  It's like we try to weasel Him out of being responsible for bad things happening.  How we do we know that the "thing" that happened was bad?! According to my finite mind it's bad.  My loved one is gone.  I have no money to eat.  I can't pay bills.  My health failed.  But it's ALL temporary.  We are heaven bound.  These circumstances were planned and our name in the book of life before everything.  "God wouldn't do that.  Sin did it.  God isn't like that."  Bull crap!!  Satan has to ask for permission.  God is in complete control of everything.  The bigger picture is that sin needed to exist for us to fully come to Him.  The end result is a right standing relationship with Love.  He knew what He was doing.  Why do we come up with things that make God smaller than He is? Why do we feel it neccessary to come up with excuses for the things that happen as though God is fumbling around trying to catch up to the events of daily life?
Free will and predestination and the way they coincide is just a glimpse of His ways.  I don't get it.  I finally put it to rest.  It seems like other people's ideas of how God works always complicated things for me in my head.  Once He had entered my heart (apart from my mind), I began to see that His ways are NOT my ways and they never will be while I am in this tent.  I'm going to accept it rather come up with little cliches that put him in a box that I can fit in my pocket.