Women I’m Starting to Admire (pt. 2)

A few days after I read about Tamar, I picked back up in Matthew. I didn’t get much further though. The name “Rahab” caught my eye. Thinking back on my Sunday School days, she was the woman who put a scarlet cord in her window to signal she was on Israel’s side. Also, the first time she is introduced in the book of Joshua, she’s identified as a harlot. Yet here she is in the lineage of Jesus.

As Joshua chapter 2 reads, she hides the Israelite spies, deceives the king of Jericho into thinking that the spies left the city, and then requests something from the Israelites in return for her kindness.

Just those three things show me how wise and brave she was. Rahab didn’t let feelings of shame, unworthiness, anxiety, or fear win. She worked up the guts to push down the voices that said she had no right to ask for anything considering the way she’d lived her life until that point. She asked for her and her family to be spared from the death that would come when the Israelites conquered Jericho. And her request was granted.

The spies did list some conditions on which the request would be granted. Yet none of those conditions hinged on her past. In fact, her occupation never came up in the conversation that’s recorded. She recognized their God was real. She’d heard how the Israelites had had victory after victory when the odds were stacked against them. Yet God had been on their side and brought them through every battle. She wanted that God on her side, too. She knew that with Him was true life and safety. And that was all that mattered to the Israelite men. She was on their side.

Her past did not disqualify her from being a part of God’s people. Her past didn’t silence her. She spoke up humbly but boldly. And because of that, she’s another great great grandmother to Jesus Himself.

What would happen if we stopped letting our insecurities keep us silent and instead spoke up anyways? Or what if we just show up where God has us and let God use us instead of silencing ourselves or making ourselves small or thinking that we don’t actually matter? What if the insecurities and fear and anxiety are Satan’s way of silencing us because he knows how powerful God is when He shows through us? Rahab had every reason for every insecurity, but that didn’t stop her from succeeding in saving her life and her family’s life.

Rahab didn’t succeed on her own, though. She admitted she needed help.

Think how much harder and scarier Rahab’s life would have been if she’d determined to escape Jericho on her own and run from the battles the Israelites were fighting. She probably would have died shortly after everyone else in Jericho. If she did escape, she may constantly have been running and wondering if she’d ever belong anywhere.

She made the smart choice. The choice that put her leaps and bounds ahead of where she would have been if she’d chosen to do it on her own. The choice that came with risk of rejection. The bold choice that saved her life.

We don’t speak up just to say things. We speak up for things that matter. We lovingly speak up to point to Jesus. Literally, Rahab’s life pointed to Jesus as we see in Matthew. Let’s follow her lead. Let’s see her as a woman to admire. Because despite her past, she took responsibility for her future.