This is a difficult thought for new Christians, so I ask that you 'set it aside ' if it bothers you or just pray on it. Our Triune God who never had a beginning and will never end is a relationship. He is three in one… He is also omniscient, omnipresent and omnipwerful - all- knowing, always present (in your future and in your past), and has complete power to control everything and all at once….). Our Heavenly Father knew that Eve would fall, He knew that Adam would follow Eve. He allowed satan into the garden where the tree of knowledge grew.
…. My own explanation is simply. If we are to be a people called out to be 'friend' it must be willingly, with each decision we make, our faces turned toward the Lord God as we journey through the ages marching into eternity.
…..God could have made automatons, with no decision but the right one, with a desire for righteousness. This is where I see God made us to choose. If we are to relationship with God it must not be from a place of ambiguity. It must be from a place, with eyes wide open separating ourselves unto Him.
……Without the Holy Spirit we have no understanding of the God relationship but if marriage is to reflect that relationship. As it is often used to define our dependence on Christ, than I ask, who would want to marry someone they did not choose? Unless we are in submission to someone we give our authority over to willingly. As in a willing 'bondservant'. So I choose Christ and His righteousness and then I find out He has already chosen me and the two become one. Hopefully, that is not too far into my inner most thought processes…. in that sense I am married to Christ, a bride to my Lord whom I willing become a bondservant as I have to my own earthly husband and he to me….
God bless, andrea