When I went to college, I had a set of clear expectations about what my time there was going to look like. I would join a fraternity, make the best friends of my life, and go to law school. The fraternity thing worked out, and I made some decent friends, but God had a different set of expectations for me. I ended up in ministry and couldn’t be happier with where I am, but the process of getting there had some bumps.
In the beginning of Romans 9, Paul is talking about the fact that the Israelites were God’s chosen people. They were supposed to be the elect—his chosen family. They expected that God would interact with them in a certain way and that salvation would look a certain way, but when Jesus came, the script got flipped. God showed that adoption into his family came through Jesus and not by birth.
So being chosen by God turned out to be different from the way that the Israelites expected it to be, but Paul points out that if their expectations turned to Jesus, then the result would be better than they could imagine. In the same way, I never dreamed that I would not be a lawyer, but boy am I happy that I am not one now. I’m not designed for that, and God knew that all along.
In the same way, God has designed us to be part of his goodness in specific ways. He may choose some of us for specific roles, but it’s like being cast in a play. Somebody must be the villain and somebody must be the hero. If you’re playing the villain and your expectation is that that is the only way people will see you, then you get lost in your role. God wants to break us out of our roles to have life to the fullest with him. He wants to take us to where he wants us to be. Will you go?