Does God Choose Some and Not Others?

I read Romans 9 today. I’m having a tough time with it. Paul writes, “For God said to Moses, ‘I will show mercy to anyone I choose, and I will show compassion to anyone I choose.’…So you see God shows mercy to some just because he wants to, and he chooses to make some people refuse to listen” (v. 15, 18).

I read these words and I wonder, how can this be a loving God? Why would God purposely make people not listen, are we not all created in the image of God? How can we be responsible if it isn’t even our fault? I guess I’m lucky that God has allowed me to hear his voice, and I certainly am! But what about the people I love how choose not to listen, are they choosing that or has God made them refuse to listen. 

So as these thoughts are streaming through my mind, I continue to read. Paul, or course, responds directly to those questions, “ Well then, you might say, ‘Why does God blame people for not listening? Haven’t they simply done what he made them to do?’” Yes, my thoughts exactly, Paul. He continues, “No, don’t say that. Who are you, a mere human being, to criticize God? Show the thing that was c rested to say to the one who made it, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make on jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into?” (v. 19-21). Ok, so I’m not suppose to question God. I understand that God is far beyond my comprehension, and I will never understand many of his ways, but he created man to think. He created us to question and to reason, and when I employ those capacities and I read these words I just don’t understand. Did God really make certain people to be used only to throw trash into? That just doesn’t make any sense to me, it makes me sick to my stomach.

I hope I’m misunderstanding what’s being said. There are a lot of debates between predestination and the free-will (I think those are the categories), and they explore this exact question. Maybe I should look into what people have written about these verses to get a bigger picture, a deeper understanding. 

I don’t have any final thoughts on this, I just read it this morning and was struggling with it. I read the next chapter in hopes to find more of an understanding but didn’t find much. If anyone is reading this and has thoughts or has struggled with this, please comment. I think it’s a good conversation to have, and I’m curious to hear other thoughts on it.