Over lunch last week with some of my really smart friends, a question came up… Although I can’t quite articulate the question without a rapid-fire series of questions in these:

How much doesn Heavenly Father control? Does he control everything? And if he does, where does that leave free agency?

The consensus over salads was that he doesn’t control everything because we have to have our free agency (it’s part of The Plan after all). And I thought this sounded most logical and reasonable and so we ended lunch and went our separate ways.

But here’s the thing: I can’t stop mulling it over.

AND, I know this about myself: sometimes logic betrays me. Because let’s just say if I was logical and reasonable about everything, the whole Joseph Smith story would freak me out. I need room for faith. What about faith? What about trusting His will? (Again, The Plan.)

So I’m here, at an impasse:

Is His will for each of us something He has already come up with and we just bumble (well, I bumble. I think most of my friends glide) along attempting to figure it out? Does He really know what we’ll choose? Does He know how it ends up?

Do I really believe in fate? That things are destined to be?

I don’t know.

But when I think about my life, about every centimeter of wonder around me (The grass! That baby! Eyelashes!) I know that there is a divine design in everything and that it seems to shout testimony to Him, to something greater and perfectly planned.

But it’s in the minutiae that I get confused: Did He stop a fire in my town while allowing the California fires to rage? Did he save a life and take another? Why is one child sick and another thriving? Is He constantly grooming us for what lies ahead? (Does that mean it’s fated?)

He is God after all. I guess He can do what He wants because He knows what we need. But does He hesitate to send it our way? Or to withold? Or is He excited for us to learn? Or is He just sitting there, laughing at the messes we get ourselves into? And wait, how does agency fit into all of this? In the way we react? Tell me!

Is Heavenly Father standing up there (on a celestial pitcher’s mound) throwing out a lot of curve balls? And if he is, and we’re up to bat, who’s the catcher?