To All the Rahabs in the World

I’ve blogged about Rahab before. Maybe because she’s got such a beautiful story. Maybe because I can relate to her brokenness so well. Or maybe it’s because it shows God at his redemptive best.

Rahab was a prostitute who hid the Israelite spies and lied about their whereabouts to the local police. She led them to safety on the promise that they take care of her family when they come to invade the city. Note: she didn’t ask for herself, just her family.

Rahab’s past is synonymous with shame. She had seen her life spiral downward into something she could never have imagined as a little girl. Anyone else in her position could have turned hard and cold and not even let those foreign spies in.

But there was something about them that got her attention. Something about those stories of their god who had led them through the desert and defeated their enemies. All her own gods had failed her. Maybe there was something different about this Yahweh.

When people look at people like her, all they see is something broken. Something to discard, to throw away. God sees the perfect piece that will fit into his master plan of redemption. He sees the mother of Boaz, the father of Jesse, the father of King David, out of whose line came Jesus.

I love the saying that broken pieces make the best stained glass windows. It’s true. The best testimonies come from the worst moment of your life when you saw that God could stoop low enough to find you in your filth and raise you up. That he could save anyone, even you.

So to all the Rahabs in the world, just remember this. You have a place in God’s story. You have a place in God’s heart. You are not a dirty whore. You are a beloved daughter, a beloved son, a beloved child of God.

Your Abba is indeed very fond of you.

 

Revisiting the Classics

 

I may lose my man-card permanently for this, but I love the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s. I’ve actually lost count of how many times I’ve seen it, and it still has the same impact on me every single time.

Both Paul Varjak and Holly Golightly start the movie a bit dazed and confused. And lost. Neither one has a direction or purpose. Until they find each other.

I think life’s a lot like that. We help each other find the way. We help each other find God in the times where it seems God is nowhere to be found. We are Jesus to each other in countless ways day in and day out.

I still like to think I have a Holly Golightly out there. If she looks like Audrey Hepburn, it wouldn’t hurt.

We all get lost and lose our way. We occasionally forget who we are and what we’re here for. We lose our purpose and get trapped in some bad choices. We look up and wonder how we got where we are and wonder how we can ever make it back.

I think that’s where you and I come in. We remind each other of who we really are, not the sum of bad choices or a past history, but children of God, Abba’s beloved. We root for each other, cheering over victories and encouraging in the face of defeats.

That all may sound like a mighty heap of cliches. Maybe it is. But isn’t it comforting to know in the times when you’ve felt most alone and lost and confused that familiar voice that calls you back? Maybe it’s a phone call or an email or a text or a kind word spoken.

It’s good to go back to the classics. Most of all, it’s good to go back to the promises of God that never change, despite all the upheaval and uncertainty of our times.

May we remind each other of these promises and of the goodness of God every single day while we’re here.

 

My Favorite Bible Verse

“Yahweh your God is there with you, the warrior-Saviour. He will rejoice over you with happy song, he will renew you by his love, he will dance with shouts of joy for you” (Zephaniah 3:17).

That is my favorite verse ever. If I had a top 50 list of Bible verses, this one would be #1 with a bullet.

I still remember where I was when I first heard it and it really sank in. I was on a Union University Baptist Student Union retreat back in ’92 and Chris Rice was teaching that weekend.

I still remember being in awe of a God who was actually crazy about me. It was too good to be true. It is still too good to be true, but it is still true nonetheless.

God delights in me? God rejoices over me? God does a happy dance with loud singing over me? How can that be? It doesn’t always feel true, but it is true, and this verse is proof positive of that fact.

Read that verse in every translation you can get your hands on. It says the same thing. Meditate on it and let the fact sink in that your God delights in you. Your God doesn’t just love you out of an obligatory “I love people because I’m God and I have to love people” kind of way. No. He is crazy in love with you.

Not because you’re good enough or pretty enough or smart enough or talented enough or clever enough. He loves you because you’re you, exactly the way he made you to be.

I know this isn’t an original thought. It’s been said before (and said better) by many others. I’m just faithfully passing along to you the wisdom passed along to me by so many others through so many years.

I hope you wake up tomorrow morning and the very first thought in your head is “My Abba is very fond of me.” I hope that in your head you throw a day-long celebration over the fact that your God wants you and likes you and chose you and loves you very much.

It may not be new information, but all of us need to be reminded from time to time of these things. I know I do.

 

I Am Rahab

I am Rahab. I am what is known as a prostitute. A hooker. To put it bluntly, a whore. I make my living on my back. It’s a profession as old as time, but also a way of living that fills me with shame.

Then I meet two strange men. Something in me compels me to let them in. Right away, I can tell they’re not looking for a companion for the night. They don’t look and sound like people from the town I live in.

I ask them where they’re from and what they’re doing here and they start talking about being a people chosen by this god they call Yahweh. It’s so unlike all the other stories about gods that I’ve ever heard that I am instantly hooked. Right away, I know that if trouble comes, I want to be on their side.

The more they talk, the more I think that maybe this God who turned a bunch of ragtags into a nation can somehow turn my life around. Maybe this God of Israel is God. Period.

So I agree to their plans and hide them. I even lie to the soldiers about them. Surely this God will forgive me if He knows I’m doing it to save His people. I’ve agreed to help them and to let them out by a secret way from my window on the outer part of the city wall by a scarlet rope.

I know why they’re here. They’re here because Jericho is a wicked city and God has told His people to destroy it. I know that they will bring death. So I plead for my life. I plead for the life of my family.

They tell me that if I hang a scarlet cord from my window, the same one I used to save them, they will spare me and all my family who are inside. Me and my family will be spared.

I’m telling you this because I am a part of a famous genealogy. You may not know this, but from my line will come David, King of Israel, and later (and best of all) the Messiah Jesus. Because of my small acts of courage, I get to be a part of bringing the Savior of the world to the world.

If you look in the book of Hebrews, you will find my name. Specifically in the 11th chapter, better known as the Faith Hall of Fame. I’m living proof that God can save the lowest of the low. Not even a common whore is beneath the reach of God’s love.

If God could save me, He can save anyone. And that includes you.

I am Rahab, and I am the beloved of my Abba.

FEAR

I heard something really awesome in a sermon I was listening to a few days ago. It was about fear.

I have lived a lot of my life controlled and dominated by fear. I played it safe and didn’t take risks because of fear.

But the preacher spelled out fear for me in a way that really helped me to understand it.

Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real.

In other words, what I’m so very afraid of isn’t reality. Most of the anticipated futures that keep me up at night never come to pass. Most of the times when I fear I’ve messed up and blown another relationship, it turns out it was all in my head.

The Bible says that perfect Love casts out all fear. I am learning that slowly.

It’s hard to live out of love when you’re so used to living in fear, but it is so much more freeing. It’s how God meant for us to live.

Greater is He that is in me than what I’m afraid of. Greater is He who lives in me that what I’m facing.

Greater is He who calls me Beloved and knows my name than all of sin and hell and the world put together and thrown at me.

Because God is with me and for me and in me, I know that I have nothing to be afraid of anymore. That is freedom.

May you find the freedom of the Love of your Abba Father overcoming all your fears, so that you can step out boldly in faith into the future that God has for you right now.

Amen.

It’s Wednesday

I keep thinking about how Aaron Bryant described the father in the prodigal son parable. Especially about how radical his expression of love for his son was.

The son had his return speech down-pat. He would be a servant and work his way back into his father’s good graces. At least this way, he would have three square meals and a roof over his head. Better than that pig slop and pig sty he came from. Literally.

What did the son see? Did he see his father standing far off with his arms crossed and a look of disappointment or anger or shame? Did he see his father turn his back away to not see him coming down the road?

No.

He saw his father take off running down the road, tears streaming, and practically tackle him in the biggest bear hug ever in human history.

From a cultural standpoint, there are several things wrong. First of all, grown men didn’t run back then. At least not respectable ones. Second, the right thing to do would be to disown the son and have a funeral and consider him dead.

I think the definition of prodigal fits the father more than the son. It’s lavish, excessive, extravagant, and almost wasteful. That describes perfectly this love the father had for his wayward son.

That’s the kind of love the Father has for us. A love that caused Him to take on the lowly flesh of a slave and take that long, arduous, painful march to the Cross to die a humiliating and criminal death for you and me.

It’s Wednesday. You’re halfway through another week, looking forward to another weekend that will probably be over all too soon with another Monday right behind.

Remember that you are greatly blessed, highly favored, and (best of all) deeply loved. Your Abba is still very much fond of you and always will be.

May that be what carries you through Thursday and into the weekend and beyond.

Your New Name: A Good Reminder from Kairos

In Revelation, Jesus promises that if you hold on to the end, you will be given a white stone with a new name that only you and Jesus know. That will be the name that trumps all the other names you have been given. That name will be your destiny.

What do you call yourself? In those moments when you screw up and make a mess of things, what name do you give yourself? Is it Stupid or Idiot, or one of those names that’s so bad you can’t even say it out loud when you’re alone?

What do other people call you? Are you Lazy or Slow or Hopeless? Do you carry those names around with you like a tattoo ingrained in your brain and you have come to see yourself by those names?

Jesus has come to give you a new name: Beloved.

Where you were once a Failure, you are now Redeemed.

Where once you were a Stranger, now you are Family.

Where once you were an Enemy, now you are a Son or Daughter of God.

Where you were Without Hope, now you are a Child of the Promise.

Where once you were Lost, now and forever you are Found.

Keep these names in your mind. Let them define you and your future. Because these, and not the other names, are who you are from now on.

I am the Beloved of my Abba, and He is very fond of me. So are you.

Ain’t it great?