God's Choices

It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? (Romans 9:16-21)

          In Esther, Mordecai asks her, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14) God raised up Pharaoh to display His power in him and so his name might be proclaimed in all the earth. He called Job, Moses, and David, his servants. (Esther 4:4) He said of a pagan king, “I will raise up Cyrus in my righteousness: I will make all his ways straight. He will rebuild my city and set my exiles free, but not for a price or reward, says the Lord Almighty.” (Isaiah 45:13) He puts people where they need to be to accomplish what He chooses for them to accomplish.
         I’m tempted to say, “Yeah, but all those people were rich and powerful. I’m a nobody.” Both sentences are lies. Job was rich and powerful, but his place in history is founded on having everything taken away from him. His wife told him to commit suicide. His friends accused him of being the worse of men. Moses started out with everything, but spent forty years as a shepherd, and another forty years wandering around with a group of people who rebelled at every chance. David spent years hiding from King Saul. Yes, Esther was a queen, who as conscripted into a harem and raped. “No” didn’t mean “no” for her. It meant death.

          There are three traps we can fall into as we think about God raising someone up. The first is that God raising someone up that God makes them rich or powerful, and (we assume) happy. God can’t possibly raise someone up to live in such poverty that they eat dirt, can He? How could God be raising me up when I have gone from county employee, to retail worker, to unemployed and living on Dad’s charity? Part of the answer to that is that while my current situation has lots of limitations that I don’t like, it also gives me opportunities to do things that are more important than a job.
         The second trap is that we think God raising someone up means He approves of that person’s behavior. God can’t possibly raise up someone like Hitler, can He? And if He does, doesn’t that mean He approves of what that person does? If you read I and II Kings, and I and II Chronicles, you’ll find that most of the kings of Israel and Judah did evil in God’s sight. At least one of the prophets says that God was angry with a nation He brought to punish Israel because they were nastier than God approved. (Sorry, I don’t find the reference right now.)
         The third trap is that we believe that whatever God raises them up to do will be possible for them and that they’ll be successful at it. There’s a saying that God won’t give us more than we can handle. I believe that saying is a horrible lie, because if God won’t give us more than we can handle, then we don’t need God. We can handle it all just fine, thank you. It might be a challenge, but we’ve got this, God. No, God gives us more than we can handle to reveal Himself to us and to reveal to us the truth that we need Him.
         It’s easy to make the assumption that God’s choice of someone means He approves of them. It’s easy to assume that what we think are positive circumstances means that God approves of us. But in choosing someone of whom He doesn’t approve, or in choosing someone who isn’t in good circumstances, He shows us not only His love for all of us, but His omnipotence and omniscience because He can use then those to accomplish His will. There’s song by Don Francisco that I think says it well. Don Francisco's "Balaam"