Faith is a Verb

This week I am studying Rahab and Rachel.

Rahab the Canaanite prostitute who was savvy in business and wise in the world and who turned her whole life over to God. Rachel the Shepherdess who was so physically beautiful that Jacob was awestruck the moment her saw her walking down the pasture surrounded by sheep; she used her beauty to manipulate those around her who loved her but ended up living and ending her life in sorrow.

Outer beauty, Inner beauty - one quickly fades as time marches on, one glows ever brighter as Jesus dwells deeper and deeper in the heart. Where does Faith play a part in one's beauty? Remember God is no respecter of persons - you can show up shiny as a brand new penny in your designer suit with your designer shoes, smelling of expensive lotion and wearing the mask of the perpetual smile to Sunday Morning Mass or you can walk in off the street, smelling of need and hunger, dressed in poverty and loneliness, wondering if you can ever truly smile again in your desperate need for compassion and friendship. You both will stand in front of your Savior and who will be truly seen? Do you really want to be seen or is the social mask on so tight, are you so beautiful in your own sight, that you can't begin to imagine the beauty the Savior has abundantly blessed you with? Who will glow with the glory of God within - whose faith will shine forth as a beacon in this world?

We do not know if Rahab was beautiful in physical person or not. We know she was on the margin of society, so much so that her "Inn" was in between the two walls of Jericho. Her family did not live with her, she had no husband and no children. She was a business woman who worked hard and supported herself in a male dominated society where if you were a woman who did not belong to a man you most likely would starve. We do not know if she was deprived of society or not because Canaan at this time was a place of moral depravity and idolatry, sorcery and human sacrifice; there may have been no social moral code that would keep Rahab the Harlot from moving among her people.

"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, the men 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. 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 this land to you 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 for 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 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." So she let them down by a rope through the window, for the house she lived in was part of the city wall. Now she had said to them, "Go to the hills so the pursuers will not find you. Hide yourselves there three days until they return, and then go on your way." The men said to her, "This oath you made us swear will not be binding on us unless, when we enter the land, you have tied this scarlet cord in the window through which you let us down, and unless you have brought your father and mother, your brothers and all your family into your house. If anyone goes outside your house into the street, his blood will be on his own head; we will not be responsible. As for anyone who is in the house with you, his blood will be on our head if a hand is laid on him. But if you tell what we are doing, we will be released from the oath you made us swear." "Agreed," she replied. "Let it be as you say." So she sent them away and they departed.
And she tied the scarlet cord in the window." Joshua 2:1-21

Faith is a Verb. Rahab is our example. The One True Living God - was not Rahab's god, she was not a member of the Chosen Tribe. Rahab had heard of the Exodus, of The One True Living God of Moses who brought His people out of slavery, opened the Red Sea and destroyed the Pharaoh's army. She knew that Moses and his people lived in the desert for 40 years and survived, not only survived but thrived and more generations were born. Stop with me here - we mean the desert - we mean extreme heat, no water, no sustainable food sources, we mean wandering and not setting up tent in any place for too long. I don't know about you but I can't imagine living in the desert for even a day! Rahab knew that the only way a people could survive in the desert for a day much less 40 years was by the hand of a powerful God. When the spies came to her from Joshua's camp - they had already utterly defeated two armies, they were not weak from the desert but strong. Don't you wish you had some Manna now?

Opportunity. Every day we experience opportunity, literally every breathe we take is opportunity. Rahab welcomed two spies into her home and beheld her opportunity. In one breath she had to decide - shall I follow my people and these idol gods we claim, all that I have known my whole life to be my reality OR shall I seize the day "Carpe Diem" and tell these two spies - I know your One True Living God and I give my life to Him, I will stand with you and use my gift of savvy and wisdom to keep you free from danger so that you might come and take the land your One True Living God has promised you. My only request is that you allow me to live the rest of my life for your God, to surrender my life to Him so that I might be His also. Faith in Action, she was not going to let the Lord just pass her by she was going to shout out "I am here"!

Now let's turn back time to Rachel.

"While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father's sheep, for she was a shepherdess. When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of Laban, his mother's brother, and Laban's sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle's sheep. Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud. He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father. As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister's son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home, and there Jacob told him all these things. Then Laban said to him, "You are my own flesh and blood." After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, Laban said to him, "Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be." Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel was lovely in form, and beautiful. Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, "I'll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel." Laban said, "It's better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me." So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. Then Jacob said to Laban, "Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to lie with her." So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and Jacob lay with her. And Laban gave his servant girl Zilpah to his daughter as her maidservant. When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, "What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn't I? Why have you deceived me?" Laban replied, "It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. Finish this daughter's bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work." And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. Laban gave his servant girl Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her maidservant. Jacob lay with Rachel also, and he loved Rachel more than Leah.
And he worked for Laban another seven years."
Genesis 29:9-28

My heart breaks for Rachel. How wonderful to be young and beautiful and adoringly loved by a strong man. So loved that Jacob worked her father's lands and herds for 7 years to have the opportunity to marry her. How anticipated this wedding night must have been. Have you ever dreamed of something for 7 years? The last day of those 7 years must have crept along eternally as both Jacob and Rachel prepared to be wed. And then morning comes and joy and bliss quickly turn into anger and frustration. Jacob wakes up in the morning married to Leah. Oh poor Leah, how must she have felt watching her new husbands face turn from bliss to hatred as the sleep cleared his eyes and understanding dawned on his mind. And Rachel - when did she realize she wasn't the bride? At what point in the evening did she know? Scripture doesn't tell us -did she have to prepare her sister Leah for the betrothal? Did she get prepared herself and wait and wait and wait only towards dawn to realize that something had gone terribly amiss?

How does that next day even unfold as a man realizes he is married to the wrong woman, that his beloved is his sister-in-law and that he must sit at the table and show due respect to the father-in-law who orchestrated this whole betrayal - to Jacob, to Leah, to Rachel "You are my own flesh and blood."Genesis 29:14 - did Jacob's brain ring with these words as his heart remembered his own betrayal of his father Isaac and his brother Esau. Did God use this opportunity to break open Jacob's own heart to see for the first time what he had truly done to his own family?

Rachel at this point takes her opportunity and turns to the gods of anger, bitterness and sorrow. Through the rest of the scripture we watch her burn with jealousy and envy, her sister stole her husband, her sister has her children, the dream of her life was a living nightmare.

"When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, "Give me children, or I'll die!" Jacob became angry with her and said, "Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?"" Genesis 30:1-2

She eventually gets to marry Jacob, and he still adores and loves her (he worked an additional 7 years to be able to marry her), but it isn't the same. They aren't cleaved as one together because Jacob also lives with Leah (and then with Bilhah and Zilpah). Finally as Rachel gives birth to Joseph she is happy and experiences that joy and bliss of true love again, but in her next breathe she takes the opportunity to re-embrace greed and envy and demand of God more children. Had she even risen from the birthing stool when she cried this out to God?

"Then God remembered Rachel; he listened to her and opened her womb. She became pregnant and gave birth to a son and said, "God has taken away my disgrace." She named him Joseph, and said, "May the LORD add to me another son."
Genesis 30:22-24

I believe Rachel is the first recorded death from childbirth in the bible. Not to say it hadn't happened before in history. Just to say that scripture makes a point to show us that Rachel's shining beauty ended early in worn out anger and bitterness, jealousy and envy which all led to sorrow, in bearing the children she wanted out of a competitive spirit, not a loving spirit.

"Rachel began to give birth and had great difficulty. And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, "Don't be afraid, for you have another son." As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin." Genesis 35:16-18

She claimed those truths even to her dying breath when she named her son Ben-Oni "son of my sorrow". She turned from The One True Living God and placed her faith in her beauty and her ability to get people to love her. But isn't the real love she was looking for only possible from God? Can you really ask another human being to fill your heart when your heart cries out for God? That is a lot of expectation to put on the shoulders of another person. And I fear a lot of dissapointment felt within a heart that keeps striving in the wrong places.

Faith is a Verb. Opportunity awaits you today, this moment, to put your Faith in Action. What a glorious adventure you are on, I can't wait to see where Faith takes you! Remember on this Journey - You are Beautiful, You are Treasured, You are Sacred, You are His!

(ps - my heart also breaks for Leah, and I am so thankful that she knew and embraced God in her pain and suffering so that she might live a life of Joy - I will go into her story next week more in depth)