First Impressions
Meet the woman who shouldn't be in this story at all
Picture this: two guys sneak into enemy territory on a top-secret mission, and of all the places they could crash for the night, they end up at a brothel built into the city wall. That's not a typo. That's how Joshua chapter 2 starts, and it's honestly one of the wildest opening scenes in the whole Bible.
The woman who runs that house is named Rahab. And here's the thing — every single time she shows up in Scripture, her job description gets mentioned right along with her name. Rahab the prostitute. Not just Rahab. The Bible doesn't hide it, soften it, or leave it out. It's just there. Which tells you something important right away: this story isn't about someone who had it all together before God used her. It's about someone who didn't.
When the king of Jericho hears there are spies in the city and sends soldiers straight to Rahab's door, she does something nobody would expect. She hides them. She lies to protect them. And then she climbs up to the roof where they're staying and says something that stops you in your tracks: "I know the Lord has given you this land... the Lord your God is God in heaven above and on earth below" (Joshua 2:9, 11). This woman had never worshipped this God a day in her life. She'd never sung a song to Him, never prayed a prayer, never read a single scroll of the Law. And yet she says one of the clearest statements of faith in the entire Old Testament.
That's the part that should stop us. Rahab didn't need a resume to encounter God. She didn't need her life cleaned up first. She just needed to recognize what was true and act on it. She looked around at the world she lived in, heard the stories about what this God had already done, and made a decision. Not a perfect decision from a perfect person. A brave decision from a messy one.
If you walked out of church this week thinking, "I've got too much history, too many bad chapters, too much stuff God would have to overlook to use me," Rahab is exhibit A that you're wrong. God didn't wait for her to change professions before He included her in His plan. He met her exactly where she was, in the middle of an ordinary work night, and gave her a chance to shift everything.
This week, we're going to walk through her whole story slowly. But today, just sit with this one thing: God has never once required you to be impressive before He uses you. He just requires you to be willing.
Sit with this
- 1Where in your life have you assumed you're too far gone, too messy, or too unlikely for God to actually use you?
Journal prompt
Write about a chapter of your life you'd never want stamped next to your name the way Rahab's title follows her through Scripture. Now write what you think God would want to say about that chapter instead.