Getting Unstuck: How God Redeems Our Choices

--- Stuck Between Floors

Have you ever been stuck in an elevator?

Not falling.

Not crashing.

Just… stuck.

The doors won’t open. The buttons don’t respond. Time stretches. And the fear doesn’t come because something is happening — it comes because nothing is happening.

You’re trapped between floors, unable to move forward or backward, wondering whether pressing another button will make things worse.

That feeling — that suspended, helpless waiting — is familiar to a lot of people of faith.

They’re not rebelling.

They’re not walking away.

They’re not abandoning belief.

They’re just… stuck.

They love God.

They believe.

But they’re afraid to move.

Afraid of pressing the wrong button.

Afraid of choosing the wrong direction.

Afraid that one bad decision might ruin everything.

So they wait.

And fear of decisions leads to progress paralysis.

There is a quiet fear that lives beneath a lot of sincere faith. It doesn’t announce itself loudly. It doesn’t show up as rebellion. It doesn’t even look like doubt. It shows up as hesitation.

The fear that if I choose wrong, I might derail God’s plan for my life.

The fear that God has a very specific will, and if I miss it—even slightly—I may never recover.

The fear that one wrong turn could permanently alter my destiny.

So we pray — but we don’t move.

We ask for clarity — but avoid action.

We call it wisdom.

We call it discernment.

We call it “waiting on the Lord.”

But often, underneath it all, it’s fear.

And that fear shapes how people relate to God.

They hesitate to pray boldly because they’re not sure it’s God’s will.

They second-guess decisions long after they’re made.

They replay the past wondering if they already missed their moment.

Sometimes, if we’re honest, that fear turns into a quiet suspicion about God’s goodness.

If everything is already decided, why do my choices matter?

If my choices matter, why does God already know the outcome?

And how can God be loving if one mistake could ruin everything?

Those are not rebellious questions.

They are human questions.

And Scripture does not dismiss them.

But it also does not answer them with philosophy.

One of the oldest debates in Christianity grows out of these fears. It’s been argued for nearly two thousand years, usually framed as predestination versus free will.

On one side are those who say God has already decided everything — who will be saved, who won’t, and how history will unfold.

On the other side are those who say human beings have real freedom to choose, and those choices truly matter.

Each side has its favorite verses.

Each side has its champions.

Each side has been convinced the other side is dangerous.

For most people sitting in church, this isn’t an abstract debate.

It’s personal.

It shows up when you’re facing a decision and wondering, What if this isn’t God’s will?

It shows up when you’re afraid to act because you want guarantees first.

It shows up when you’re stuck between floors, unsure whether movement will help or hurt.

What Scripture shows us — again and again — is that God’s will is not fragile, and human freedom is not meaningless.

God is so sovereign that He does not need to cancel human freedom in order to accomplish His purposes.

He redeems it.

That phrase — redeemed freedom — may sound theological at first, but it describes something very practical.

Redeemed freedom means your choices are real.

They matter.

They shape direction.

They reveal the heart.

Redeemed freedom also means that God is not pacing heaven, anxious that you might mess everything up.

He is not waiting to punish a misstep. He is not dependent on your perfection to bring about His purposes.

God works with real choices — faithful ones, fearful ones, even sinful ones — and continues to move His redemptive plan forward.

That doesn’t mean choices don’t have consequences.

It means consequences are not the same thing as destiny.

That matters, because many people are living as though life is a spiritual payback system.

Do good, get good.

Do bad, get punished.

Try harder, earn favor.

Fail too badly, lose your future.

That way of thinking sounds biblical — but it isn’t.

It’s closer to karma than it is to grace.

Christian faith is not about life paying you back.

It’s about God redeeming what you choose.

When we confuse those two, faith becomes exhausting. Love becomes transactional. Obedience becomes calculated.

We begin to ask not, Is this faithful?

But, Is this worth it?

We keep score in relationships.

We measure generosity by return.

We forgive carefully.

We love cautiously.

We love — but with a calculator.

Scripture keeps showing us people who didn’t.

People who moved forward without knowing how it would turn out.