“By faith Rahab the harlot did not perish along with those who were disobedient, after she had welcomed the spies in peace.”
Hebrews 11:31
When we read the story of Rahab in Joshua 2, we find the city of Jericho in a state of panic. Can’t you just visualize it? Everyone from the King to the messengers of the city looking out over the wall to see the enemy Israel camped just a few steps outside the city gate. They know the mysterious success that the Israelites keep experiencing. They scurry around, fearful, plotting and scheming, desperate to keep safe everything they have and everyone they love.
Rahab was in the midst of this chaos and panic. She had a couple of choices to respond to this fearful time for herself and her family. She could join the city in dreading the invasion, or she could look at the history of this strange people and discover what they had that differed from her culture. She chose the latter. In Joshua 2:8-11, she tells the spies what she has discovered about their God and how He has delivered them time after time. She looked at her own situation, full of sin, struggle, and above all, fear. What difference did she find in these two cultures? She found God! Her beautiful expression of faith in the One who can deliver is found in Joshua 2:11-12. When she acknowledged the Lord, she expressed her personal belief in the One the two spies from Israel represented.
Rahab could never have guessed what God’s plan for her was once she took that leap of faith. She only wanted to be saved, she and her household, and she requested a relationship built on loyal love, but God intended so much more! If you look at the rest of her story in Joshua 6:17, 22-25, you discover that she was saved from Jericho, married a Jewish prince, and became the mother of Boaz, that great man of faith in the book of Ruth. Ultimately Ruth became the great-great-grandmother of none other than King David, and of course is named in the lineage of Jesus Christ himself (Matthew 1:4-6).
Sometimes I get so caught up in the worry and angst of life that I forget to look up and see that God has a plan that not only includes me, but He intends to use the very problem I worry about to fulfill His plan. Just like He did with Rahab.
