When human evil goes unchecked, bad things happen, and bad people can sometimes

turn into monsters. The author of Exodus is showing us that Pharaoh was responsible
for the evil in his heart, and at a clear point in the story (after plague 5), he
crossed a point of no return. At this point, God re-purposes this “vessel” (as Paul
puts it in Romans 9) for his own good purposes. The point of the story is not to
tell us that God engineers evil, rather, it is a cautionary warning to you, the
reader, saying, “Don’t be like Pharaoh!” Strange things happen in the human heart
and mind when we let the evil urges of our broken nature go unchecked. God will
always graciously offer us chances to turn back (would you have given Pharaoh so
many chances?!), but sometimes a person can cement themselves in a destructive path
and reach a point of no return. God can and sometimes will allow our evil to
destroy us. BUT, the good news is, if that last sentence kind of freaks you out,
you’re not Pharaoh! The fact that you’re asking the sobering question, means that
your heart is soft, and wants to do the right thing. With that being said, saying
yes to God can be hard. It can mean giving up a lot of things, and turning away
from things that we view as key to our happiness but there's a joy greater than
anything that we could ever experience on hand if we do. If we've declared our
availability to God but then in reality don't feel like we can go down the path
opening up before us, it might be because we've still got a way to go after we say,
"Yes, Lord, use me". This isn't about saying no to God but saying no to everything
else that stops you saying yes to him. It's impossible to say yes to every
opportunity that comes your way and devote the necessary time and attention to each
one. Making yourself available to God is inevitably going to mean making at least
one sacrifice, even if it's just your time. If you want God to use you, you need to
ask yourself: "Have I made space in my life for God?". Identify which activities
are continuously getting in the way of enabling you to devote yourself to pursuing
his will and reduce the amount of time you spend doing them or eliminate them
completely. Sometimes when we express our availability to God we can already have
in mind something that we want to do which will have the added benefit of serving
God. Praying that you become president because you really want to become president
with the caveat of doing God's will isn't the same as declaring honest and
unconditional availability. Being genuinely available means accepting challenges
even if they're not quite what you had in mind or something that you don't feel
prepared for. Ephesians 2:10 says: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ
Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Moreover, it
doesn't have to be elaborate, just talk to God and tell him that you're willing to
do his work. Once you made yourself available, communicating with God throughout to
make sure you're on the right track is key, and it will give you the encouragement
to help you as you do as he instructs. Lastly, it's all well and good vocalizing
that you want to do what ever God's calling you to do but do you really mean it? If
you can't bear saying no, cutting out distractions and going to God for guidance,
then you're not really available. God knows what in your heart so when you say yes,
you need to mean it.