Free Will
One of the great things about out God is that He has given us a free will to choose what we will do in this life. That can also be a curse.
The word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying: Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgements, show kindness and mercy to one another; do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear. They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. Just as, when I called, they would not hear, so, when they called, I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts, and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate. - Zechariah 7:8-14
It's not easy to always make good choices. Sometimes we choose the wrong things.
In today's reading, the Lord tells Zechariah how the people should act towards one another, and it is more than a suggestion.
God gives us the will to make our own choices, but He also sends His word to us to guide us into making good choices, choices that show compassion for one another, choices that lead to a better life now.
Zechariah learns there is punishment for not listening to God, and that may sound odd. If we have a free will to choose as we like, why be punished for making the wrong choices?
We teach our children to use their knowledge to make choices. We cannot be with them to keep them out of trouble, so we give them rules, a code to live by and we hope for the best for them.
But we all make mistakes. We all choose rightly and wrongly, though we may not see anything we do as wrong at the time.
Only later do we have regrets, but the good news is that we are not lost. When we realize we have screwed up, we can come back to what we know is true and get on the right path again.
While the Prophets tried to teach people to make better choices by sharing God's word, Jesus took a different approach and welcomed those who had made bad choices so they would experience the saving grace of God first hand. That way they would be excellent witnesses of salvation.
But God didn't take away our ability to reject Him.
So, it is up to us. We can wait until later, but if we do, we may be missing out on the real reason God wants us to choose rightly.
Life is better when we do. When we choose to help one another, we enjoy life more.
That's what God wants for us.
In the end, we will know the truth we have ignored, that we have always had the ability to make our lives better. We just made the wrong choices.
More to come...