Has the potter no right to make from the same lump of clay one vessel for special use and another for ordinary use? (Romans 9:21)What if I'm Pharaoh? Or Esau? Okay, so I know that those examples are bad because I know that I'm a child of God. But what if I'm ordinary?
What if I'm not Esther or Ruth or even Rahab? What if my "for such a time as this" comes down to doing the laundry on a regular basis (and believe me, this is not such a time for that).
Free will and predestination are tricky things. My dad explained it to me this way: there are two ropes hanging from a ceiling. One is free will. The other is predestination. On the other side of the ceiling, they are connected by pulleys and levers. We don't know how. We have to use both ropes to get to the ceiling. Let go of one rope, and you fall. If you look in Exodus, sometimes it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Sometimes it says that Pharaoh hardened his heart. Other times it just says that his heart was hardened. But however it happened, God used it for His glory.
Here's the thing, though. I want to think I'm special. Or at least, I want to think that God has a special purpose for me, some shining moment. I want to think that He's going to use me through published books. But what if He's not going to? What if my purpose is--gasp--ordinary? I don't want to be the pot that goes to the well everyday for water. I want to be the pot painted with muses and set at the king's table.
But that may not be the case.
I may be ordinary.
And after all, it was the ordinary vats that held the water that was turned to wine. And it was an ordinary jug that filled and refilled with oil for the poor widow at Elijah's word.
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