Rahab

I stopped writing over the past 3 years. I stopped being still and started flailing. I didn't have time to sit still or even really a place to sit still anymore; I was in survival mode. I miss sitting still. I miss connecting with myself and with God and seeking inwardly. A part of myself has been missing these last 3 years. But I'm trying to pick up old practices that brought me so much life before. Today, I stopped and read this...

"And she lives among the Israelites to this day..."

This line is about Rahab, a prostitute, and is found in Joshua 6:25. It talks about the Israelites taking over Jericho and destroying everything there. Sparring nothing except this prostitute and her family, the Israelites burned everything in this town. Verse 25 says, "Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute and her relatives, who were with her in the house, because she had hidden the spies Joshua sent to Jericho."

They didn't save Rahab because she was a prostitute.
The also didn't NOT save Rahab because she was a prostitute.

They saved Rahab, because she realized that God was the one true God and she risked her life to help hide spies to complete God's mission.  In Joshua 2:11 Rahab tells the spies, "No one has the courage to fight after hearing such things. For the Lord your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below."

We tend to focus so much on the fact that Rahab was a prostitute, but this defining factor for Rahab had nothing to do with her heart and what God was telling her. I can't help but think that God used the fact that Rahab was a prostitute as an example to help us understand who He will use in His story. It could have been Rahab the teacher or Rahab the homemaker, but it was Rahab the prostitute. To me this speaks to the fact that God will use anybody if we're willing to be used. I love the line that says, "She lives among the Israelites to this day." Rahab's decision to serve God despite the possibility of this costing her life, saved her and her entire family and changed the course of the rest of her life.

In a city that was totally destroyed, Rahab didn't allow her past to keep her from the new role that God had for her and she didn't allow her fear to stop her from stepping out and risking everything for what God was speaking into her life.

What a beautiful inspiration Rahab is to me.