By Nita Wilkinson

Faith Editor

Whoever first looked at a pickle and thought, "You know what this needs? A bath in batter and a trip through hot oil," is one of my heroes.

Seriously. Fried pickles, or as I prefer to call them, fried salad, are one of my all-time favorite appetizers. Crispy on the outside, salty and tangy on the inside, dipped in that creamy sauce, well, they’re pretty close to perfection.

Of course, that creates a dilemma every time I eat out. I can order the amazing fried salad to start my meal, or I can choose the ordinary, healthy, leafy salad.

One makes me very happy. The other is probably the better choice and is better for me in the long run.

Life is full of choices like that.

God created us with the incredible gift of free will. We choose where we live, what we do for a living, who we spend time with, what we watch, what we eat, how we spend our money, and ultimately, whether we will follow Him. Some choices come after careful research. Others are based on experience, emotion or simply what makes our hearts sing.

The beautiful, and sometimes frightening, thing is that they're our choices to make.

From the very beginning, God wanted a relationship with people who chose Him willingly. In the Garden of Eden, He gave Adam and Eve everything they could possibly need. There was only one restriction: don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It seems like such a simple command from where we stand today. Then again, hindsight has always been 20/20.

What amazes me every time I read that story isn't just that Adam and Eve disobeyed. It's that God already knew they would. He knew they would choose poorly. He knew I would too.

He knew there would be days when I'd choose jealousy instead of gratitude, gossip instead of kindness, busyness instead of time with Him, or place work, hobbies or even exercise ahead of my relationship with Him.

None of it surprises Him, yet He gave us free will anyway. Think about that for a moment. God loved us enough to give us a choice, knowing that choice would cost Him everything. Before Adam and Eve ever reached for the fruit, God already had a plan to rescue us.

Genesis 3:15 gives us the first glimpse of that plan:

"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."

Even in humanity's darkest moment, God pointed toward hope. Jesus would come. Satan would wound Him at the cross, but Christ would ultimately crush the serpent's head through His death and resurrection.

That is an audacious love beyond anything I can fully understand. Every day I need to remember that my freedom came at an unimaginable price. God doesn't force me to follow Him. He invites me. He allows me to choose.

Some days the choice is as simple as fried salad or the healthy one. Other days it's choosing forgiveness over bitterness, faith over fear, obedience over comfort, or Jesus over the countless distractions competing for my attention.

The wonderful news is that when I choose poorly, and I will, God’s grace is already there. The cross made a way back. Now that's a choice worth making every single day.

"Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails." Proverbs 19:21 ■