I waited with abated breath. My heart started to beat at a faster rate than normal as I realised how important this question was that I just asked. "Well...?" I prompted.
"Yes is your answer."
Clouds of confusion appeared in my mind's horizon. "Yes, what?"
"Yes, your eternal destiny is heaven or hell. Those are the only two options."
"But I was wondering if you knew my specific destiny!" My voice was slightly raised. Again, Michael took his time answering.
"No. I cannot see into the future except as I am informed by the Most High."
I was disappointed by his answer, but then my mind caught on to something he said. I noted, "So you can see into the past?"
"Yes, I am not time bound as you are, but I am not outside of time altogether as is the Most High. I could tell you most anything you wanted to know about anything that happened at any given moment in time, already past, anywhere in all of creation. Although, I would need to research it first."
"Maybe I can still get some worthwhile information," I thought, scrolling through my past for a significant event but nothing of note appeared, and before I could ask a question, Michael continued.
"Unfortunately for you, that is not our purpose."
"Rats!" I said facetiously, "I've always wanted to know whether Bobby Williams cheated in a poker game when we were 14. I had a full house and he had four..."
"My apologies, but we were talking about foreknowledge and free will." Michael reminded me.
"OK. Here is a question for you. If it's already known for certain whether I will go to heaven or hell, why should I bother doing anything about it? It would appear that I have no role to play in determining my own future?"
"You have asked a good question. How is it possible for there to be both an unchangeable destiny and personal accountability for what you do. This is mainly an issue of looking at the question from two different perspectives. From one perspective it appears that all things are already determined and will not change. From another, that you have free will. From the point of view of the Most High, everything is already finished, there is no change to come, no surprises, no alterations. Everything is known, but that is not true from your point of view. From your point of view what you do makes all of the difference."
"How can that be?" I asked as I picked up my 'Hot Apple Pie' which was now a cold apple pie.
"What is in one of those things?" Michael asked.
I was just about to take my first bite. I stopped. I was growing used to Michael's sudden changes of direction. He wasn't asking this question because he was curious about fruit pies. He was going somewhere with this. I just didn't know where. I read him my answer from the package: "Flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder, salt, corn syrup and apples, oh, and preservatives. .
..Preservatives? This isn't about preservatives is it?" I thought that would be a very strange way to explain much of anything.
"No, it is not about preservatives. The destiny of the flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder, salt, corn syrup, apples and preservatives was to become that apple pie and so it is. Once it was completed, it's fate was sealed: apple fruit pie. It is not possible for it to have been something else. The time for it to be other than it has become is already past. There is no changing the past. However, what if they had put cherries in it?"
"I wouldn't have ordered it. I don't like cherries."
"You are missing the point of my question."
"Oh... Uh... then it would have been a cherry fruit pie."
"Right, but they didn't and so it is an apple fruit pie. That fruit pie can no longer be a cherry fruit pie. It could have been earlier, but not now. Looking at anything from the present perspective means: it is what it is, and cannot be other. Looking at the past from the present is the perspective of completion. You exist outside of the past. You can look upon it and make secure judgments. What is done is done, there is no changing it. The Most High's view of all of time is one of completion. He is outside of the time line, so he can see all that was, is and will be, at once. He knows what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen. He can look upon it and make secure judgments."
"So he knows everything. That still doesn't answer why I should pray. It seems to me that if everything is determined, there is no reason to pray. Why pray? He isn't going to change his mind. Doesn't that mean prayer is useless."
"If you existed in the frame of reference of the Most High, that would be true, but you don't. Let's look at your prayer question from both perspectives, his and yours. That should help make the difference clearer."
"OK."
"Suppose you are trying to decide whether or not to pray for a rise in your salary so that you can send your children to college. Finally, you actually pray. Also suppose that the Most High chooses to act in your favour and move your employer to say, 'yes'. If you hadn't prayed, you wouldn't have gotten the rise. This is an example of the normal way that you think in your current time frame. Your actions make a difference. God hears your prayers. Your choices affect the outcome of your life. Now, put yourself into the eternal time frame. From the point of view of the Most High, your prayer was already known, already answered and your employer already moved. There was never any question. The whole of the time line was seen, past present and future. All outcomes are already known and determined."
"But what if I hadn't prayed?"
"Then that would have been what happened and the outcome would have
been just as certain. That would have been what was seen from above the
time line. You would not have prayed, your employer would not have been
moved, and you would have received no pay rise. There are no surprises
in the eternal time frame of the Most High. What you have done, what you
are doing and what you will do are all known. In the eternal now of the
Most High, all things are known. They are predestined and cannot change.
However, in the present as you experience it, all of your choices in life
are free. He knows what you will have decided in every decision, but he
does not force you to choose one option or the other."