This is the very same free will which God has. But can God lie? To put it another way, can God embrace a lie into His holy soul?
Nope.
And neither can an evil, fallen nature embrace the Truth.
This is what John 3:6-8 is talking about. You have to be supernaturally regenerated unto conversion. Faith is the holy result of God's supernatural operation on the sinner's heart. Faith does not secure regeneration. It actually happens the other way around!
My point, the Lord's point to Nicodemus, is that God choses individual sinners to be saved unto the faith of the Son of God (v.8). When you are regenerated, your free will becomes free indeed (John 8!) And you freely choose God in responsible faith--i.e, your strangely new nature responds to Him!
Think about it. This understanding which I am laying out for you is surprising to most churchgoers, but it is correct. Part of the confusion consists in the fact that all we see are the effects of regeneration, i.e., the conversion and all of its fruits! (That's John 3:8 again!)
The rest of the confusion stems from the fact that sinners are by nature evil. They despise the Calvinistic position precisely because it is correct.
Psalm 2:4