Predestination

When I was a student I was taught that there was a heaven and a hell and it was with some consternation that I encountered the concept of predestination. My thought was that if God already knew what my future was then what difference did it make as to how I lived my life.
It was many years later, after I conclude that there was no hell that I got a better understanding of predestination. I believe that before I was born that God laid out a plan for my life down to the tiniest detail and if I followed that plan I would have life of joy and happiness. This does not mean that I would never encounter any disappointments but that I would be able to deal with these down turns in a constructive manner.
The conflict arises because God also gave me a free will and I am allowed to deviate from God’s plan anytime I choose.
Now as a young adult my ego stepped in and began to run the show and often times the plan of the ego moved away from God’s plan and thus introduced stress into my life.
Think of God’s plan as your right hand and the ego’s plan as you left hand. Now there is a spring holding these two hands together and as they pull apart the tension on the spring increases. As long as they remain fairly close the tension is not too great to cause any trouble but when they move a certain distance, problems surface. These problems can be physical, mental, emotional or spiritual and they detract from your joy and happiness. If you are fortunate, sometime well into the second half of life you realize what is going on and you take the necessary steps to reign in your ego and realign yourself with God’s plan and you can spend your remaining years in peace and contentment.
So while there is such a thing as predestination, I am not bound by limits of God’s plan because I am free to choose which plan I want to follow. By following the plan of the ego does not mean that I must spend the rest of eternity in hell but it does mean that my life on earth was not as happy as it could have been.