One of God’s greatest gifts to us is our free will. But judging by the headlines these days, we haven’t made very good use of it.

So the question becomes: Since God knows everything, including the future, why did He give us free will in the first place? After all, He already knew the suffering our choices would cause.

The short answer is: because He loves us. Say what? Yes, that’s right: He loves us so much that He only wants what’s best for us. And free will is what’s best for us.

Now to be sure, God does not will our bad choices and the suffering they bring. But He tolerates them because to prevent them would be to limit our freedom. And God is very, very serious about preserving our freedom -- in everything.

And one of the most important things that requires freedom is real love. God loves us for real, and He wants us to be able to freely choose to love Him for real. He’s not interested in coerced, robotic “love” -- which isn’t love at all. Authentic love must be freely given, and that can only come from free-willed beings.

So yes, we’ve made a mess of things. But we still have God’s gift of free will -- let’s use it, with His help, to make better choices.