Maybe I can try to figure out where your problem with free will comes in..
Do you have a problem with the possibility that someone could be given a little bit of grace and not persevere? That they may have a choice and not take it?
Saving grace, yes. Grace, no. Even the lost experience the grace of God. They live in a beautiful world. They usually have at least some measure of blessings though they are disposed against God. The thing is, no matter what, left to our own we will never choose God.
I only say that there is no free will because man is bound by sin. The chains of sin isn't a state of freedom. Yet, from the standpoint of being free to choose God, God does not withhold that choice from them. He isn't saying NO, you can't come. Though being God, he knows that nobody would come.
Through Christ, we were able to taste true freedom for the darkness which sin kept us in (which we willingly embraced) was lifted and we were made alive to God's truth.