Liz Dumain

I like Rahab. I like the bit of her story that we can read in Joshua 2. It was an exciting time. The Israelites had been in the wilderness for about 40 years and were just about to cross over into their 'promised land' - the place that they had been dreaming about, learning about and planning for, for their entire lives. Now that time had come they must have been so excited!

The first stage of the crossing over was to overthrow the city. Joshua sent spies in to look around and suss out what they were about to face. The spies snuck into the city, but someone got wind of the fact they were there - they were in trouble and needed somewhere to hide - quickly!

This is where we meet Rahab. At first glance she's maybe not the kind of person you might expect God to use in his plan for the promised land; because Rahab is a prostitute and quite possibly in charge of a brothel. However Rahab becomes a key part of the plan for the Israelites to enter in to all God had for them. Without Rahab, the story could have been very different.

Rahab hides the spies in her house at her own risk and putting the lives of her family at risk too. Rahab recognises that something big is going on, which in the same moment scares her and gives her enormous courage.

She hides the spies from those who wanted to kill them and in return begs them to keep her family safe when they return to take the city, which they agree to, as long as she hangs a scarlet cord in her window so they can see her home when they return and know who to spare. It seems like a small request, but it had big implications for Rahab. By hanging the cord out she drew attention to herself; she had to be visible and the cord was bound to cause comment. What would the neighbours say? Especially after people had already been at her house once looking for foreign spies!

In order to enter in to her own 'promised land', the safety and protection of God's people, Rahab had to be prepared to stick out and not hide away in the crowd. She had to be brave and take a risk that she had been promised something and that the promise would be kept.

So what might this mean for us?

If God uses prostitutes to further his plans, then he'll use you and me and many other people that we might not expect. Let's not decide who is good enough to be used by God, because we'll usually be wrong.

There are times when we need to be courageous and brave in difficult circumstances; prepared to stick out in a crowd when maybe we'd rather just blend in. Sometimes God asks us to step out of the shadows in order to enter into our own 'promised land'.

Sometimes we'll need to go with our gut feeling that God is up to something, even if we don't have all the answers and the greatest experiences of God will often come in situations that seems the least sensible.

My prayer for us all today is that we will have courage in our own Rahab moments; that we'll get a glimpse of what God is up to in our lives, our communities, our schools, places of work and families and that we'll have the faith and courage of Rahab to stick out & get stuck in.