Ever not been chosen?
I am sure you have had that experience. For a job? A lover? To be on someone’s team for a simple game? Depending on your investment determines how you feel when you are left standing there.
It seems so unfair doesn’t it? Someone else was chosen but not you.
“Not only that, but Rebekah’s children were conceived at the same time by our father Isaac. Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls—she was told, “The older will serve the younger.” Just as it is written: “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.”(Romans 9 v 10-13)
If our filter of life is what is fair to us then we are going to focus on who is not picked, who seems like they are rejected or condemned.
But if our filter in life is on the roles we play in the ever-revealing plan of God then our focus is on His glory and pleasure. So if I am not picked for a job it doesn’t mean I decide never to work. If I am not picked to be a lover doesn’t mean I will never love. If I am not picked for someone’s team doesn’t mean I will never ever play games again.
So if you get picked realise it is for a role not because you are better than the rest (something Paul will say next). If you do not get picked then you don’t walk away or abandon faith, you accept the glory of God and His purpose which is higher than the other person that was picked, in fact, it was nothing to do with them, it was all about Him. You don’t do what Ishmael, Esau and Edom (Malachi 1) did by opposing God and the people He chose. But even if you do as they did it will still ultimately bring glory to God.
Missions Paul 