Haverhill Commons Church

Rahab was a woman, a Canaanite, and a prostitute. She is the kind of person the Israelites would have written off and ignored. And yet, her faith in the God of Israel defies expectations. Before she even asked to be included amongst the people of God, she offers that kind of inclusion to the Israelite spies. In faith, she’s already done the very thing that she hoped God would do for her. As she welcomed enemy spies, she trusted that God would welcome her. As she provided safety to them, she prayed God would provide safety to her. As she protected the life of another by endangering her own, she had faith that God would protect her. Who have you already written off that God has not? Maybe it’s someone you categorize as not belonging for whatever reason or maybe it’s yourself.

In The Odyssey, Odysseus’ crew couldn’t trust his promise that they would survive without eating the cattle. In Exodus, Israel couldn’t trust God’s promise while Moses was on the mountain. And in our lives, we struggle to trust God while we’re waiting for the next chapter of our own stories. Like the Israelites, who make and worship a Golden Calf, we often turn to other things to try to save us—whether approval, success, or security. The Israelites’ problem wasn’t that they stopped believing in God. Their problem was that God wasn’t moving on their timetable. And we do the same thing. We may never melt down jewelry to make a golden calf, but we do become impatient with God’s timing, and in that impatience, we are constantly tempted to place our trust in whatever promises relief right now. But nothing we turn to can accomplish what Christ accomplished for us when he bore our sin, defeated death, and rose again.