Does God Know?

Once, a very long time ago, I found myself in the position of being confused about some things.
Did God know the future?
Did He know my thoughts before I thought them?
Was the future absolute?
Or did I have the power to change it?

Knowing that the future exists, somewhere, out there, leaves one with a listless feeling. Nothing can be changed. The future is written in stone.
Some people say that the future is out there, but it's constantly moving.
I honestly don't believe it even exists.
But coming to that conclusion was hard. I was driving in my car and I was so confused I thought, "well, I will just pray to God and ask Him." But my mind answered, but if God knows the future, He knows you're going to ask Him. So why do you need to bother going through with asking Him?
"Fine. Then I guess I don't need to ask Him."
But if I don't ask Him, that means in the future I never asked Him in the first place.
So which was it that He knew I was going to do? Did He know I was going to ask Him? Or not?
Regardless, I think I asked Him anyway.

I remember asking Him how something turned out in the end. Because if you believe God knows the future, eventually you begin to believe you don't have much choice. "God, where will I be in ten years?"
I imagine His answer to be something akin to, "That is for you to decide."
You have no idea (maybe you do) how scary it is to realize your fate is in your own hands. God has power over the universe, the inanimate, unintelligent objects such as the sun, planets, rocks, the ocean, etc; He has power over the animals, the trees, the fish and the birds; He even has power over us. But He chooses not to control us. You have a free will that you use to make choices that will affect your life. It seems easier to just say, "God's in control, He will make me get this job, or He will make this happen."
Oh, it's true, God will cause things to come about. If He prophesies about something He will do later, He will follow through with it. But God isn't in control of your life the way a five-year-old girl is in control of her barbies. He gives us opportunities but it's our choice to take them. (..I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live. Deut 30:19)
He also gives us commands. But, here's the tricky part, it's still our choice to obey or disobey. Just as it was Adam and Eve's choice to eat the forbidden fruit. God certainly did not cause them to.

"Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the Lord your God; and the Lord will repent him of the evil (judgment) that he hath pronounced against you." Jeremiah 26:13
Here is an example of the Lord giving the princes of Judah a choice.

Now, God has taken control of a situation and/or a person before. It can happen. But when he does, the person is not responsible for the outcome. He can not be punished or rewarded for something God caused him to do. And God can never take control and cause someone to be saved. Salvation is always a free-will choice made by the person. This is called divine intervention and is usually the exception, not the rule.
But we are not talking about all that at this moment. We are talking about our free will and how it affects the future.
I go to examples in the Bible, such as Israel. If God knew how rebellious Israel was going to be, might He have chosen a different nation to be His people?
What about the world, in general? If God knew Adam and Eve were going to sin and He still created them anyway, seeing ahead to all the murderers, genocides, suicides, and sins (resulting in eternal damnation), wouldn't that mean God was responsible for creating such an atrocity?
I myself refuse to believe that.
If it were true, how does one explain Genesis 6:6 where it says that it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it GRIEVED him at his heart. This is when he decided to destroy earth. Why would he create them at the same time knowing he would destroy them? Why not stop it before it happens?

The simple answer is this: God does not know the future. Because it does not exist.
Many of you will have a cow reading that; God knows everything, how dare you rob power from Him?
I agree. God knows everything there ever is to be known.
But the explanation that the future does not exist and, therefore, is impossible to be known is so simple and logical is almost hurts my mind.
People have it all worked out how God is outside of time and there's this dvd playing on His screen and He knows how it all ends because He's seen the movie before--wait. . .Doesn't that mean He doesn't have any power to change what's already been done? Oh! Right, the future is always moving. But, then, how does He know anything's going to be final? How can He be certain about the future that He's seeing if it's constantly changing? He'll never know, for sure, what's going to happen until it actually does.
You see how twisty and turny this 'logic' gets?


People may argue that we don't know what God knows and so it might even be impossible to say whether He knows the future.
But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2 talks all about how we have the Spirit of God. And what knows a man better than his own spirit? Therefore God's Spirit knows all and reveals the deep things of God so that 'we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory'. Sure, there are things we don't need to know. But whether or not God knows the future and has the power to change it is important and it is very clear in His word that He doesn't know the future.

Time is just one event happening after another. Our choices haven't been made yet. They aren't sitting, locked away in a closet, they are yet to come into existence, we are yet to think tomorrow's thoughts. Therefore, it's only logical to assume that the 'future' does not exist.
It's as simple as that.
And knowing that it doesn't exist gives God all the more power to help shape a better 'future'.

Figuring this out allowed me to pray again.
Realizing that the future doesn't exist isn't limiting God in any way. In fact, it frees us to pray more fervently and allows Him to work more intricately in our lives. There are unlimited possibilities for our future and nothing is written in stone. I knew God would help me as long as I submitted myself to His guidance. I knew that I had a choice in the matter of my future and that, whatever was to come my way, He would be right with me, ready to offer His help whenever I need it.

"God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God." Psalm 62:11