Free Will and Knowing God

Most Christians struggle with the idea of predestination, especially when it comes to the “unsaved”. My particular quarrel with this is that either God is in control or we have free will. It cannot be both ways. For example, if God is control of circumstances, then he gives some people an easy time with faith, brought up in a loving home or taught scripture from an early age. It would be easy for someone like that to trust God, because their circumstances how made faith easy. However, someone brought up where religion is equated with hate and bigotry will have a much harder time. I have heard the argument that even someone who is brought up in this rougher situation still has a choice and if they don’t choose God, that means their hearts are bitter and hardened. But doesn’t God have the ability to soften a heart? When Moses was negotiating his people’s escape, God admits he hardened pharaohs heart. If God has the ability to harden, shouldn’t he be able to soften? In fact, isn’t this what we tell ourselves when we evangelize; that it is not anything we say or do really that wins people over, but God revealing himself to a person and we ask God to soften their hearts to his message. That would mean that God is really in control of whether we accept him or not. If that is true, then why isn’t everyone a Christian? Why wouldn’t God augment their circumstances in order that they would see him or soften their hearts so they would hear him? If he truly loves the whole world, why not give the whole world an equal chance to know him?