[Avodah] Can we force Hashem to do something?

[Marty Bluke]

The Gemara Bava Metzia 85b has a fascinating story. The Gemara
recounts that Eliyahu Hanavi used to come to Rebbi's shiur. One day he
was late. He explained that it was Rosh Chodesh and he had to wake up
Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov to daven and he could not wake them
together because if they davened together they would bring the Geula.
Rebbe asked if there was someone in his generation who could bring the
Geula and Eliyahu answered R' Chiya and his sons.  Rebbe then called a
Taanis and had R' Chiya and sons daven. When they said Mashiv Haruach
the wind blew, Morid Hageshem, it rained. As they were about to say
Mechaye Meisim the world was trembling and in heaven they sent Eliyahu
Hanavi down to distract them so they wouldn't have Kavana and bring
the Geula.

The obvious question is, why the distraction? If it wasn't time for
the geula so don't bring the geula. Why would Hashem be forced to
answer the tefillos of R' Chiya and his sons? It sounds like from the
gemara that if they had succeeded in davening with Kavana the Geula
would have come against Hashem's wishes. Why? Why would Hashem be
forced to bring the geula just because they davened?

Similarly, the Gemara in a number of places recounts how a person's
time was up and the malach hamaves came and could not take the person
because he was learning torah. The malach hamaves then created some
distraction which caused the person to stop learning for a second and
the malach hamaves then took his soul. Again, the question is why does
the malach hamaves need to do this? After all, it is the person's time
to die. Why does the malach hamaves need to distract the person why
can't he just kill the person while he is learning?

In short, it seems very strange that distractions need to be created,
why can't Hashem just do what he wants?