Predestination or Free Will?

"Predestination or Free will?", this was the question put to me by one of my kids when I was serving in the Youth ministry. I had answered then and had tried to keep my answer short. I hope to elaborate on that answer here.
"In Him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will." Eph 11:1
"We have been predestined..."; what does this actually mean? The Bible says that God has chosen us from before the foundation of the world. This clearly means that some people in this world have already been chosen to spend eternity with God. This also clearly means that some have not; these have been chosen for destruction! So now we naturally ask, "Is God fair? What kind of justice is this? Why does God claim to be just He will send some people to Hell only because He Himself did not choose them?"
Such questions may seem almost blasphemous but these are honest and reasonable questions and deserve honest and reasoned answers. But before this we need to answer one important question, "On what basis does God choose people for His kingdom?" For this we need to understand something of God's character.
God is God and can do anything He wants to. After all, does He not declare, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."? But He also says that He is not willing that any should perish. This means that God does not want anyone to be lost! Yet He Himself has said, "Narrow is the way that leads to life and few be they that find it."
So we see that God does not want anyone to perish and yet many will perish. Then does this mean that God is not all-powerful after all? Certainly not!!!
Yes, God is all powerful and almighty but He is also humble. Even though we are less than a speck of dust when compared to Him, He respects us and respects the decisions we take. If during our life on earth we prefer to stay away from Him, we certainly could not stand being with Him for all eternity! God knows this and respects our decision to stay away from Him. So He grants us a place where there is absolutely no manifest presence of God- the lake of fire.

But then what of predestination? It is on the basis of our decisions that we are predestined to spend eternity either in heaven or in the lake of fire.
"For those God foreknew He also predestined... Rom 8:29
also
"who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God..." I Pet 1:2
We are chosen and predestined according to God's foreknowledge. God sees the end from the beginning. Even before He created Adam and Eve, God knew which of His descendants would choose to follow Him and He chose such people. In other words He chose the people He foreknew would choose Him. Therefore predestination and free will are in fact complementary rather than contradictory!
So I believe in predestination based on man's(or woman's) free will. Only this makes sense in light of the character of God as revealed by the scriptures.

God bless you.