By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient.
Hebrews 11:31
Now since we all have a pulse, and we’re still breathing, we all have a past. Some of it might be interesting. Some of it might be fun. Some of it might be filled with great success and accomplishments. People may have stood and applauded when you walked in the room.
And then there’s those other times in our past. You know what I’m talking about. Those deep, dark secret memories that we just wish everyone could forget. Including us. Those things we did and said in our past that make us want to go and hide under a rock. To pull the covers over our heads and hope that no one finds us.
I’ve got so many of them that I just don’t know where to start. Some of them were just silly things. Some were just stupid things. And then there’s those great big hurtful things that I did or said on purpose to cause the biggest pain possible. Where I pulled out my personal nuclear bomb and dropped it to destroy someone.
But there’s another side of our past that’s just as horrible and painful but comes from the opposite direction. There are those desperately painful times when we failed to do something. Anything. And it was our inactivity that caused deep, painful wounds. There may not be physical scars, but the cut still goes deep.
Not doing something, not saying something, can be just as devastating and crushing as doing something. Saying something. Actually, it can be worse
I’m not going to ask you if you can remember anything like this. Before you even read those words, your brain was already there. All the details were downloaded into your active memory. What the weather was like. How they looked. What was going on in the world that day. We knew exactly what we were doing, and we did it anyway.
And one of our reactions is that we’ve immediately been moved from one group to another. Once we were someone that God was happy with. We were good enough for God to use us in the lives of the people around. Some of us thought that God might even send us to people we’ve never met.
But everything has changed. Our words, thoughts, actions, and attitudes have disqualified us. The video in our head proves that we had our hands in the cookie jar. There’s no question about our guilt, so what’s the point of trying to fight it.
No matter what we’ve done, no matter how terrible it might have been, our name wasn’t changed. We didn’t become Chet the liar. Chet the thief. Chet the scammer. Chet the bully. Chet the murderer.
Think about what happened with Rahab. Her past was glued so tightly with her that her name changed. No more just plain old Rahab, but now she’s always called Rahab the prostitute[1]. How would we like everyone to add our sin to our name? It would have to just reopen our wounded past in a very painful way.
I don’t know what you’ve done. Whether it was a big sin or not. How many people were hurt by what you did. But I’d bet every dollar in my bank accounts and 401K’s that everyone doesn’t call you by the sin you did. I’ve done plenty, but I’m still just Chet. And you’re still called your name.
Not Rahab the prostitute. She’s forever remembered by what she did. It’s one of those sin titles that you get no matter how long you’ve been doing it. It could have been once, or it could be for year after year. It doesn’t matter. Once you commit the act, you’re labeled and there’s no going back.
I’m not trying to say that what was done wasn’t wrong. That it wasn’t evil. That the agony everyone felt wasn’t intense and painful. That it doesn’t need to be admitted and confessed for exactly what it is. And sometimes, there is a need to pay people back for what’s been taken.
A great big failure doesn’t stop God from loving us or using us. When we crash and burn with God and people, it doesn’t always disqualify us. Sometimes it does, but most of the time it’s something that God already knew about and then shifts gears with us. Sometimes gears shift smoothly, and other times you hear the grinding of the metal teeth.
No matter what we’ve done, it doesn’t always take us out of the running for God to do something big and marvelous in us. Through us. Rahab the prostitute had no clue what the future held. She was just interested in what happened next. Not getting killed by the invading Israel army was right in front of her. Saving herself and her family was what she wanted. And that prayer was answered. But it didn’t end there. She’s welcomed into the people of God and married Salmon. That alone would be worth a headline. But God uses their family as one of the very important parts in the family of Jesus[2]. Imagine that, the Son of God having a non-Jewish prostitute as part of his family. And even though we all know people that will turn their nose up on us and our past, God doesn’t. If he welcomed Rahab the prostitute with open arms, then we’re also welcomed.
Noodling Questions
Does the fact that we’ve all been disqualified make us feel any better? Explain.
How would adding one of our sins to our name change our life?
Why does God bring in strangers and foreigners into his family?
[1] Joshua 2:1, 6:17, 6:25
[2] Matthew 1:5
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