Rahab

A couple nights ago at a church home group meeting, the ice-breaker question was, "What Biblical person (other than Jesus) would you like to meet?" Many people would probably jump to the Bible big-names—David, Paul, Moses, Adam, or Eve, maybe even one of the namesakes of the books. My mind started going to the smaller, lesser-known women. I thought of Deborah, Sarah, Rachel, or Leah. Esther, Bathsheba, or even Gomer or Hagar. Each of these women have fascinating stories. However, my mind rested on Rahab.

Rahab was a prostitute who hid two Israelite spies sent by Joshua in Jericho. She helped protect them from the king of Jericho, and because of her faith, she entered the lineage of Christ. I started thinking about her more—thinking about what her life must have been like, and how one seemingly small decision altered the course of her life. And God used her life to show us something about His character.

When most people hear Rahab's name, they immediately think, "the prostitute." It's almost as though her occupation became part of her name. In fact, when the New Testament refers to her, it calls her "Rahab the prostitute." At first glance, it almost seems cruel. Why would God continue reminding everyone of who she used to be? But the emphasis isn't on Rahab's past; it's on God's grace. Every time we read "Rahab the prostitute," we are reminded that God delights in using the very people that the world believes are unusable.

Think about everything Rahab had working against her. In order to even become a prostitute back then, she undoubtedly suffered some sort of trauma and/or abandonment by her family. She wasn't an Israelite. She wasn't one of God's chosen people. She didn't grow up learning the Law of Moses or hearing stories around the family dinner table about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. She lived in Jericho, a city whose destruction God had already declared. She made her living in a profession that was sinful. By every human standard, Rahab should have been the last person anyone expected God to use.

However, God wasn't looking at her résumé; He was looking at her heart.

One of the things that fascinates me most about Rahab is that she had never actually witnessed any of God's miracles. She wasn't standing at the Red Sea when the waters parted. She wasn't there when manna fell from heaven. She never watched water pour from the rock or stood at the foot of Mount Sinai. Everything she knew about God came from hearing what He had done for someone else. Joshua tells us that the people of Jericho had all heard about the God of Israel. They had heard about His power, His victories and the miraculous things He had done. The difference was that everyone else responded with fear, while Rahab responded with faith.

God meant for us to learn by faith. He never wanted us to learn through experience. That can be painful and hard. And when she heard, she chose faith. The evidence was exactly the same for every person living inside those city walls. They all heard the same stories. They all knew Israel was coming. They all knew there was something different about Israel's God. Yet only one person chose to place her faith in Him. The difference wasn't the amount of evidence they had. The difference was the condition of their hearts.

What also amazes me is that Rahab believed while the walls were still standing. She didn't wait until Israel won the battle before deciding she was on God's side. She didn't wait until the walls came crashing down before concluding that the God of Israel was the true God. She acted before she saw the miracle. By hiding the spies, she was risking everything. If Jericho had somehow defeated Israel, Rahab would have almost certainly been executed as a traitor. Her faith wasn't safe. It wasn't convenient. It cost her something.

I wonder how many times we do the exact opposite than Rahab. We tell ourselves we'll trust God after He answers our prayer—or if He answers our prayer. We'll trust Him after He heals the marriage, provides the job, restores the relationship or changes the diagnosis. We want certainty before faith. Rahab reminds us that faith has never worked that way. Faith has always required trusting God while the walls are still standing.

We also can misunderstand what changed Rahab's life. It wasn't the collapsing walls of Jericho that changed her future. Those walls simply revealed what had already taken place in her heart. Her life was altered the moment she believed God. Her past certainly mattered, but it did not disqualify her. God wasn't waiting for Rahab to become someone else before He could use her. He was looking for someone who would believe Him, and the moment she did, the trajectory of her life changed forever.

The rest of Rahab's story is nothing short of remarkable. She didn't simply survive the destruction of Jericho. She became part of the nation of Israel. She married Salmon, became the mother of Boaz, the great-grandmother of King David, and eventually found her name in the genealogy of Jesus Christ Himself. The woman most people remember as "the prostitute" became an ancestor of the Messiah. Only God could write a story like that.

Many of us spend far too much time believing that our past is what defines us. We wear labels like "divorced," "addict," "alcoholic," "adulterer," "prisoner," "failure," or "abandoned" as though they have become our identity. We feel as though those labels are the first thing God sees when He looks at us. Rahab's story reminds us that while God certainly knows everything we've ever done, He is far more interested in the condition of our hearts than the mistakes that are behind us. He isn't looking for perfect people with spotless histories. He's looking for people who will believe Him enough to trust Him while the walls are still standing.

Maybe that's why, out of everyone in the Bible, I want to meet Rahab. I want to hear what it was like to choose faith when everyone around her chose fear. I want to know what it felt like to watch those walls fall after she had already placed her trust in the Lord. Most of all, I want to thank her for reminding me that my future is not determined by my past. It is determined by what I choose to believe about God today.

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