There are a lot of really great women in the bible. Admittedly there are a lot of not so great ones too, even a couple downright bad ones. But I like to focus on the really good ones because us women – we are the bride, we hold so much power to impact this world – and we read some really great role models to help us navigate the path God has in front of us. So whether we learn loyalty and obedience from Ruth, or wisdom in who we surround ourselves with from Esther, or grace, gratitude and sharing our faith from the woman at the well, or how to give from the old widow who have her only two coins at offering – what the women of the bible have to teach us can guide us in this life. I should note, these really great women were not necessarily perfect… a perfect story is not what made them great. The woman at the well… definitely not a great back-story but her story is great because of her response to God and how she reacted after she radically encountered Christ. I am thankful for all of the beautiful women who guide me in the scriptures.

Like Rahab.

Joshua 2:1-7 “Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.” But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. She said, “Yes, the men came to me, but I did not know where they had come from.  At dusk, when it was time to close the city gate, they left. I don’t know which way they went. Go after them quickly. You may catch up with them.” (But she had taken them up to the roof and hidden them under the stalks of flax she had laid out on the roof.) So the men set out in pursuit of the spies on the road that leads to the fords of the Jordan, and as soon as the pursuers had gone out, the gate was shut.”

So this is how Rahab’s story begins. In the very first sentence we learn that Rahab is a prostitute. This right away tells us everything we need to know right? Rahab definitely does not have a perfect back-story, but then again, it was because of her profession that her home would seem to be the perfect place for the spies to go. Guys coming in and out of her home would not have been unusual – and she would have heard the news from inside and outside the walls of Jericho. Had Rahab been a good girl, we would probably know nothing of her story. But because she has a very real story – we actually get to see what to me is the picture of a great faith.

See, we can ell already that Rahab – not an Israelite – knows that there is something different that she wants and that is must be the God of the Israelites. She would have heard the stories of the miracles He had performed. But at this point, I can already tell there is something about these Israelites that she wanted more of because of how she responds. The king sent the message. The king was the top dog – and had the power to take life and livelihood or freedom from those in his city walls who displeased him. Yet Rahab immediately and phenomenally lies directly to the king’s messengers. She put her own life in danger to protect two men she knew nothing about other than they were men of the God she wanted deep inside to know. She protects these two men at great personal risk because she knew something… even if she didn’t know what it was she knew.

Joshua 2:8-14 “Before the spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof and said to them, “I know that the Lord has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. We have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea or you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to Sihon and Og, the two kings of the Amorites east of the Jordan, whom you completely destroyed.  When we heard of it, our hearts melted in fear and everyone’s courage failed because of you, for the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on the earth below.“Now then, please swear to me by the Lord that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. Give me a sure sign that you will spare the lives of my father and mother, my brothers and sisters, and all who belong to them—and that you will save us from death. “Our lives for your lives!” the men assured her. “If you don’t tell what we are doing, we will treat you kindly and faithfully when the Lord gives us the land.”

Rahab proceeds to let the men out to safety and directs them on where to hide to avid the pursuers. And they agree that all in her home will be saved, and to identify her home – she ties a scarlet cord out the window. Rahab knew that everyone feared these people and their God, but somewhere in her she knew that the God of these men was the answer. That God was what she longed for, ached for, and desired in her heart. She saw in these two men hope for a different life than she had led. She knew somewhere deep in her heart with a faith that was based only on stories that she had heard – she knew that the only way she and her family could really live was to find a way to this God of the Israelites. She knew God was the hope.

I love this picture of faith. Because Rahab and me, we are an awful lot alike. For years I found my security in the arms of men. I gave up everything – every part of me, gave it away because it was the only way I knew how to live. It was the only way I knew how to survive. Each ended relationship took a lot more from me than it had ever fed into my life. I paid high prices each time I gave myself away, things I can never get back, things I can never undo. I built up in my life walls of guilt and shame and pain. But somewhere in that hardened, hurting heart of mine I knew. I knew there was something better. I knew and hoped for a totally different life. I heard stories about God. This God! And my heart started to hope even more. Somewhere in me there was a very real faith that if I could only somehow get to this God, that I could live in real freedom. That the oppressive chains that held me down, the guilt, the shame, the pain, the regret – there was an answer if I could only get to God.

Fortunately in my life, it didn’t take risking myself and hiding a couple spies and lying to a king. My freedom was easier. It took walking through a lot of church doors until I found a pair that opened to a place that felt like home, that took away all my excuses.

My heart broke, but in that breaking was freedom. It was painful, tear-filled freedom that broke the solid shell of my heart and my world. I found Him – that God of the Israelites. I found the Christ that everyone promised would overcome all the evil, including death. I found the One my heart yearned for, cried out for – the One my heart always knew was right there. And that faith only exploded because when I found Him there was no denying He was real, He was power, He was grace, and He was love.

Pure and perfect love like I had never known before; that I had never found in all the arms I had allowed to hold me before. And those human arms I no longer allowed to oppress me.

I found Him.

Rahab found Him.

Joshua 6:22-25 “Joshua said to the two men who had spied out the land, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring her out and all who belong to her, in accordance with your oath to her.” So the young men who had done the spying went in and brought out Rahab, her father and mother, her brothers and sisters and all who belonged to her. They brought out her entire family and put them in a place outside the camp of Israel. Then they burned the whole city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house. But Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, with her family and all who belonged to her, because she hid the men Joshua had sent as spies to Jericho—and she lives among the Israelites to this day.”

And how do we know she made the Israelite’s her family? How do we know she found their God? Just read the lineage of Christ, you find this, “Solmon, the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab”. Yes, there she is. The prostitutes who knew with faith but that in the love of God was where she needed to be… right there in the lineage of Christ.

And here is the kicker of the story. The part I missed probably the first hundred times I read it. We always think the story is about the spies, about the eventual success destroying Jericho. But I think the story was always about Rahab. God knew her heart all along, God knew her desire for Him – He heard her cries at night to find her way to Him – He knew her faith in Him though she didn’t yet know Him. And He stayed to His promise to not lose one of the children whose heart is focused on Him.

John 6:39 “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all those he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.”

Because – catch this now – three days later the spies get back to Joshua and tell him what they learned. Then…

Joshua 3:1 “Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over.”

Did you catch it? Early in the morning… Joshua had already prepared the Israelites to move forward. Joshua was not waiting on the report of the spies. The information they brought back was not even a little bit important in the story. Jericho would still have been overcome had the spies never been sent out. It would have all still happened, everything except Rahab’s salvation. Rahab, the prostitute now found in the lineage of Christ. Rahab, who tied a scarlet cord of faith to the window of the home where she sold herself to step out into life, freedom and grace in God’s family. Rahab, who tied that scarlet cord in faith of a God that she did not yet know. Maybe the spies were not sent for information, maybe God’s plan for them was greater – maybe God’s plan was one amazing woman of faith and her salvation.

And you know what? He fought that hard for me too. He sent person after person into my land, my home, my world; until I figured out how to tie that scarlet cord of surrender on my window and step out into that same life, that same freedom and that same grace.

And He is fighting that hard for you too. Are you ready to break free in shining scarlet faith?