Did you ever secretly feel angry at Adam and Eve for starting this whole mess? If they would not have sinned we would be sitting in that perfect garden right now. We would be as innocent as they were before they listened to Satan.

But are you so sure that if it would have been YOU instead of them, the same thing would not have happened? As I look back over my own life I see way too many times when I knew the right thing to do but I deliberately did the wrong thing. Why? Because I wanted to — no excuses — just plain old rebellion.

That’s what you get with free will. That’s what God got. He chose to give his human creation the power to choose and it is quite a spectacular power. I’ve often admired God for giving it to us because I figure that if I were him I probably would not have done so.

And yet, to him, it must have been worth it in order to have a creation that would worship him freely by choice. As much as he desires to have intimate fellowship with every person he created he knows that won’t happen. Some will thumb their nose at him and go their own way and they can do that because of their free will.

Think how wonderful it is when someone comes to God and says; “Lord, I freely lay down my own will in favor of yours in my life.” “Ahhh…” he must smile, “that makes it all worthwhile.”

It doesn’t matter what you would have done if you had been the one in the garden. What matters now is that YOU can make God smile!