Which point, about heavy rocks or reincarnation? (Not to mention Jan the robot.)
And parents can be hurt and yes, even alienated to the point of being adversarial, if offenses are not repented of and forgiveness pled.
To be fair, I asked Mitchell what he thought in the original question.
Jan had a choice, but NOT the one you think. Her choice was made years before she ever met me, when she said, “God, I believe you ARE, and I give you my heart.” That was the same choice I made a few hours before seeing her in the grocery store. Once we choose God, we have given him the right to use us as instruments of his love. He may then drop into our hearts the thoughts, inspirations and whatever intentions HE needs, to accomplish His will. It does not make us robots. WE made the decision to allow God to use us. God CAN use ANYTHING as if it were a robot; he could aim a meteorite to strike someone, but for a person to belong to Him, they have to choose Him first, then obey Him.
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God can use anyone as his instrument, however, as well as the natural world, in his providence for his children.
My point is that God wondrously uses his creatures and anything else in creation to providentially accomplish his ends, without violating anyone’s free will. Jan was not forced to be in line in front of you, but that is where God put her, unbeknownst to her that you would be behind her.
For instance, in my nephrectomy account, God was sovereign over the minutest detail – the timing and placing of the mutation(s) that caused the cancer, as well as everything else – the timing of the first symptom, the timing of my phone calls, the date and its corresponding devotional reading (not to mention which devotional), the timing of the other patient’s appointment cancelation, and on and on. There were several people involved in all of that, and I have no reason to believe that they were all Christians, or if any of them were.