Faith and Perseverance #2

There’s another thing about the story of Rahab that’s encouraging to me. Rahab gathered her family, told them about the way of salvation and then somehow kept them all there in the safety of her home—or in the safety of the faith since being in her house with red cord displayed was the way they were going to be saved. She had to deal with feeding them and finding places for them to sleep. She had to deal with the inevitable squabbles of family cooped up together. She had to quell their doubts, especially when the Israeli army spent six days marching around outside the city walls only to go silently back to their camp.

How many times did she have to explain why it was important to stay in the house, to drill into their heads that it was dangerous to leave? How many times did she have to explain that God was with the Israeli army although they probably appeared totally ineffectual? Sure, hiding the spies was a courageous act of faith—but continuing to convey her faith to her family in close quarters, persevering day after day, now that was really something amazing.

Thinking about Rahab gives me heart to continue to tell the story of my faith to my kids, to explain to my teenager once again that “it’s dangerous out there,” that there is one way of salvation even though the actions of God’s people may look odd or ineffective right now.

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 and brothers 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 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. Joshua 6:22-25

Faith and Perseverance

I’m reading Joshua right now and I find myself wondering about Rahab’s family. Rahab was the woman who helped the Israelite spies when they came to check out Jericho. She hid them from the king and then helped them escape the city in exchange for a promise that Joshua would save her family when the Israelites came to destroy Jericho. The spies promised her salvation on the condition that she hang a scarlet cord from the window of her home so the army would know which one was hers. All who were waiting in her home would be saved. Anyone who went out into the street took his life in his own hands.

As soon as the spies left, Rahab tied the cord in her window. She probably also went out and told her parents, brothers and sisters about the coming destruction and the promised salvation. She urged them to seek refuge in her home.

And then what? And then they all sat around waiting I guess. It was at least a week and probably much more before the Israelites were even heard from again. (The spies hid for three days before returning to the camp and then the Israelites crossed the Jordon, camped in the vicinity for three days, circumcised themselves and waited to heal, all before marching on Jericho).

What did Rahab’s family think during this time? It probably went something like this: We’ve been duped. There is no danger. Or even if there is danger, what good will sitting in the house do? We’re missing so much going on out there in the town. What about my business? I’ve got to get back to it before it runs into the ground. I’ve got to plow, plant, harvest, winnow, store, etc or I won’t have anything to eat. I’ve got to spin and sew or I won’t have anything to wear. And what about my friends? What fun am I missing?

Finally the Israelites appeared, but they spent six days merely marching around the city once per day blowing trumpets. What did Rahab’s family think then? Now I KNOW we’ve been duped. Look at all the silly motions they’re going through. It’s all meaningless.

Did some of the family leave they house? Did they lose focus on why they were waiting (their ultimate salvation from death) and begin to fight with each other about trivial things? Did they doubt Rahab’s sanity, thinking she must have gotten the salvation plan wrong. I mean, afterall, how can this little cord save anyone? Did they begin to invent their own versions of how and where they could survive? Did they start thinking about ways they could save themselves?

Does any of this sound disturbingly familiar? We’re all waiting right now. At some point, we became convinced of hell and the ultimate destruction of this world. We learned there is a way of salvation. But now we wait and things like death and destruction seem far off and even a little crazy. What seems more real are concerns about what to eat and what to wear and how to spend our time and that annoying person sitting next to us as we wait.

Take heart. Keep focused on the unseen realities. Rahab’s family was eventually saved from destruction and so will we be if we remain faithful.

"Let us hold unswervingly to the faith we profess, for He who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23

The Faith of Joseph

I’ve been thinking a lot about Joseph this holiday season. Joseph, the forgotten figure in the Christmas story. Poor Joseph, whom the Bible describes as a good man, apparently cheated on by the woman he loved before they even were married. What did it take for Joseph to obey the words of God and assist in bringing Christ to the world that first Christmas?

First, he had to set aside his own plan. Joseph had already decided what to do—he would divorce Mary quietly--and apparently it was a reasonable and appropriate plan since it is in this connection that the Bible praises him as righteous. Second, he had to swallow his pride—public pride in front of a community who thought he was a fool to marry the woman who had made a fool of him, family pride in the sense that he would now raise a child who was not “bone of his bone” and “flesh of his flesh,” and probably his personal pride as a man before Mary. What had he said to her when he first heard she was pregnant? He obviously hadn’t believed her story of a virgin conception since he was planning to divorce her. I expect he owed her a big apology and had to go and humbly beg her forgiveness before he could marry her. Finally, he had to act despite his fears. Have you ever noticed that the angel said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife?” Apparently Joseph was afraid to marry Mary. We don’t know exactly what Joseph feared but I can imagine: fear of marrying a promiscuous woman or a nutcase who thought she was bearing a god-child. Fear of raising another man’s child and bringing “bad blood” into his home. Fear of how his future children would be affected by their mother’s reputation and this illegitimate child living in their home. The only way he could obey was to trust fully and completely that what the angel had said was true (which would make his fears moot) or cast caution to the wind and say “OK, I’ll go for it. I think this is what God is telling me so I’ll proceed despite my fears” which of course is another form of faith.

There’s a lot of lessons we can learn from the attitudes of the characters in the Christmas story: the willing servant heart of Mary, the watchfulness of the Magi who traveled great distances to worship, and the shepherds who spread the word, but this year I think I’ll focus on Joseph who presents a perfect picture of "trust and obey." He quietly facilitated the introduction of Christ to the world at great cost to himself, his pride and his plans, despite his fears.

The Life of Faith

A couple weeks ago my husband and I rented the movie, The Lake House, in which a man and a woman discover that somehow they are living two years apart in time but that they can communicate through the medium of a mailbox at the lake house. She is living in 2006. He is still back in 2004. OK, don't try to analyze it too much...it's just a movie. Anyway, at the climax of the movie, Sandra Bullock's character reaches out to Keanu Reeves' character and tells him that he will die on Valentine's Day 2004 if he continues on the course he is heading. (Remember, she knows his future because she is in the future.) She tells him what to do to avoid this premature death and that she loves him and will be waiting for him at the mailbox on Valentine's Day in 2006. And of course, the movie ends with their joyful meeting at the mailbox in 2006.

The final scene is shot pretty much from Sandra Bullock's perspective. She puts her warning message in the mailbox, hopes that the man she loves has acted upon it and then he drives up about 30 seconds later and all ends well. But you have to ask yourself, what was Keanu Reeves doing while Sanda Bullock waited those thirty seconds? For him the waiting lasted two years. Did he begin to doubt that he had ever really received messages from the future? Did his friends tell him he was nuts to be waiting for this unseen and pretty much unknowable woman? Did he get lonely and wish he could date women who he could actually see right now? Did he wonder whether she would really be at the assigned place in 2006 after he had given up two years of his life just waiting around?

Essentially Keanu Reeves had to live a life of faith for two years. He had escaped death only to feel like a stranger throughout 2004 and 2005, waiting for his real life to begin in 2006. How did he get through it? Well, presumably he reread her letters a lot. When he began to doubt, he replayed in his mind all the "coincidences" that had happened which could only be evidence that this woman who loved him was waiting for him in the future. He probably also made any major decisions through the filter of "I want to be in this particular place in 2006" and he probably avoided any entanglements that would hinder his relationship with Sandra Bullock reaching its fruition in 2006.

It's actually a pretty good illustration of the life you and I live waiting for unseen and pretty much indescribable realities to occur in the future. Sometimes people think we are crazy; sometimes we ourselves wonder if we are crazy. We sacrifice certain things today because we believe we have something much better waiting for us in the future. We hang on. Patience. Perseverance toward the unseen goal. Believing that what we will surely have later is better than anything we could possibly have now. The life of faith.

"Unanswered" Prayer

My daily email from Back to the Bible today contained an excerpt from Elisabeth Elliot which is exactly what I had been planning to blog about. Since Elisabeth Elliot undoubtedly writes better and with more experience and authority than I do, I'll let her say it:

News came one day which indicated that a matter I had been praying about had deteriorated rather than improved. "What good are my prayers, anyway?" I was tempted to ask. "Why bother? It's becoming a mere charade." But the words of Jesus occurred in my Bible reading that very morning (and wasn't it a good thing I'd taken time to hear Him?): "If you, bad as you are, know how to give your children what is good for them, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?" (Matthew 7:11, NEB).

Are you as often tempted as I am to doubt the effectiveness of prayer? But Jesus prayed. He told us to pray. We can be sure that the answer will come, and it will be good. If it is not exactly what we expected, chances are we were not asking for quite the right thing. Our heavenly Father hears the prayer, but wants to give us bread rather than stones.

I know from other of Elisabeth Elliot's writings that what she is referring to in that last sentence are those verses in the gospels that say "If your son asks for bread will you give him a stone?" and "If your son asks for an egg will you give him a serpent?" No, we know that God would not do that. But what if what we ask for is a stone or a serpent and we are just too ignorant or short-sighted to realize it?

In that case, God will give us the bread or the egg and we will be disappointed. But we will not be unanswered. Faith is accepting what is put in our hands and accepting that it is good, and in fact, better than anything we could have asked for.

(The excerpt is from Elisabeth Elliot's Keep a Quiet Heart. To sign up for daily email excerpts from Elisabeth Elliot or other devotional writers, go to Back to the Bible. They'll also email daily Bible reading guides.)

Keep a Quiet Heart By Elisabeth Elliot / Baker Available at Christianbook.com for $9.99 (save 23%!) When you long for a quiet refuge away from the noisy, frenetic circumstances of day-to-day commitments--where do you turn? If you're Elisabeth Elliot, acclaimed speaker and author of many best-selling books, you look to one place alone: to the embracing arms of our omnipotent and infinitely loving Heavenly Father. This book is a unique collection culled from the lead articles featured in Mrs. Elliot's newsletter over the past several years. "Mostly they are about learning to know God," the author says. "Nothing else comes close to being as important as that. It's what we are here for." Join Elisabeth as she points the way to a deeper, more fulfilling--and restful--walk with God.

Praying with Faith in God's Answer

Elisabeth Elliot writes in A Lamp For My Feet:

Sometimes when I was a child my mother or father would say, "Shut your eyes and hold out your hand." That was the promise of some lovely surprise. I trusted them, so I shut my eyes instantly and held out my hand. Whatever they were going to give me I was ready to take. So it should be in our trust of our heavenly Father. Faith is the willingness to receive whatever He wants to give…

I don't know about you, but sometimes I find it hard to know what to ask for when I pray. Should I ask God to help me pursue this goal or that new direction? I torture myself with questions like “What if this thing I’m praying about is not in ‘His will?’” What if my requests are merely reflections of my own selfish desires? I feel very much like the double-minded man James talks about, who asks God for wisdom but doubts God even while he is asking, and is therefore unstable in all he does (James 1:5-8).

When I want to cut through these thoughts and get to the heart of what prayer really is, it helps me to take a deep breath, shut my eyes and picture myself as a very young child holding out her hand to her father. I think, “Whatever You have in store, I know it is good.” I open my mind to gratefully accepting whatever it is God puts in my hand that day. Praying this way takes the burden off me and puts it on God, where it is supposed to be anyway. It is a simple way to pray, “Thy will be done.”

I prayed this way just yesterday with surprising and reassuring results. I was busy preparing for a meeting about a new business opportunity. I really did not know how to pray. Should I ask God to bless the meeting and help me maximize this new opportunity? What if God really did not want me to pursue it? What if pursuing it would take time and attention away from other things He wanted me to do? On the other hand, what if my praying that God would eliminate the opportunity if it was not His will was just some spiritualized form of laziness or reluctance to work hard? What if the hours involved would impact my kids? What if? What if? (See, I told you I can torture myself.)

I stopped, closed my eyes and pictured myself as a child holding out her hand for a gift. I said, “God, I am happy to take whatever it is You have planned for this meeting and this opportunity.” I relaxed. Within 15 minutes, one of the parties involved called and removed what had threatened to be a fairly significant obstacle to me. This morning, the other party involved took the meeting in the direction I would have most wanted it to go if I was calling the shots. I could just lean back and thank God for His good gifts.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for an egg, will give him a snake instead?” Luke 11:11