The prolonged time of distress weighs on me. I am faced with pain and losses around me. I hurt with situations in my own life, and I hurt with others who are suffering. The question we all seem to ask is, “How long, Lord?” We in our finite minds, trapped in time, want to know when the pain will end.
As I pondered the question, I received an unexpected answer from God, simply one word – “Rahab”.
His word caused more questions in my heart. “Really, Lord, that is how You are answering me? That is all I get? I want to know specific times and dates of when the situations will finally end. I want to see You move on my behalf and for others so we can celebrate your victory. Yet, all I get is the word “Rahab”? What does that mean?”
We find the story of Rahab in Joshua chapter two. Moses had died. Joshua is now the leader of Israel. They are commanded to conquer the Promised Land. They had been commissioned to do so forty years earlier, but due to the sin of unbelief, they wandered the desert instead, until everyone over the age of twenty died. Only Joshua and Caleb, the two men who believed God would give them victory were allowed to live. However, they had to bear the consequences of the wilderness journey along with the Israelites. Now the time had come for the people to take the land.
Joshua 2:1
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.
Even though Rahab was one of the people living in Jericho, she chose to rescue the spies from the king who wanted to kill them. She hid them on the roof of her house under stalks of flax. The king’s searchers were sent away to look for the spies, for she told them that the two men had left. After all was safe, she went to the spies and explained her decision to save them.
Joshua 2:8-9
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.
Rahab, a pagan, idol worshipper, Gentile, prostitute; believed the word of Lord. She knew that her land would be conquered by Israel, just as God had said. She had faith in the plan of God. Remember, the nation of Israel did not believe this word forty years earlier and were forced to wander the wilderness. Yet, this woman had faith and requested help from the spies.
Joshua 2:12-13
“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.”
The spies told her to tie the scarlet cord to her window as a sign between them. Everyone in the house would be saved.
Joshua 2:21b
So she sent them away, and they departed. And she tied the scarlet cord in the window.
Because Rahab rescued the spies and followed the covenant by keeping the cord tied in the window, she and her family were saved.
Joshua 6:22-23
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.
Not only was Rahab saved from battle, she became a part of the Israelite community.
Joshua 6:25
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.
Not only did she become a part of the Israelite community, Rahab put away her life of prostitution and became a wife and a mother. Not just any mother, she became a part of a kingly lineage:
Matthew 1:5-6a
Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
Rahab was the great-grandmother of King David. This means that she is one of the many great grandmothers to Jesus Himself! Rahab, the Gentile prostitute, became a part of the genealogy that led to the Savior of the world.
How does this relate to my original question to the Lord of His timing for the end of my difficult situation? Here is what the Lord was telling me. If Israel had been faithful and conquered Jericho forty years earlier, Rahab would not have been born. She would not have had the opportunity to choose faith in God and to see the rescue of her entire family. She would not have become a part of the Israelites, married, and had children. She would not have been a part of the line that ultimately birthed Jesus, the Savior of the world!
What seems a delay to us, may be an orchestration for other people’s lives and other people’s families to be eternally changed! Our pain, our suffering, our “desert times”, may be a divine set-up for others to come to Christ. God’s answer for us to “wait” is giving others time to be saved.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
My focus must switch. Instead of asking “How long”, I instead should ask the Lord to rescue more and more “Rahabs” during this time of delay. We will see Christ “birthed” into our situations. Lives will be changed. “Rahabs”, those far from the Lord, will become a part of the people of God. We will celebrate what God has done. Every delay will become a reason for thanksgiving.
Hold on, dear friend, your deliverance will come and the lives of others will be delivered as well. Just like Rahab.