Summary: You may not see what God is up to, but he is up to something good—and that includes his good plans for you. Yes, God is fulfilling his purposes for his own glory, but he is also working out the details of your life for your good. Don’t let circumstances tell you otherwise. You may be tempted to flee in fear, and God’s enemies may be fighting mad at God, and anything God loves, which includes you, but at the same time, God is repurposing even the most unlikely sources, as we will see in our featured verse today, the “Rahabs” in your world, as instruments of His inexorable plan.
God Speaks—I Obey // Focus: Joshua 2:7-11
God is always at work, even when we cannot see it. God is always fulfilling his glorious purposes, which include perfecting everything that concerns you and me. Perhaps you should memorize, meditate on, and quote Psalm 138:8 as I have,
The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. (Psalm 138:8)
At times, God is working in visible, dramatic, and undeniable ways. We will see an example of that very thing a few chapters later, when in Joshua 6 the walls of the city of Jericho miraculously fall. Those kinds of stories are strategically placed throughout scripture to build our confidence in God. But between those faith stories, which are long stretches of time, God’s work is not so visible. He is not inactive, mind you; his work is just invisible. You see, most of the time God is behind the scenes, working in unseen ways, as is the case here in Joshua 2. The Israelite spies Joshua sent out to size up Jericho have entered the city, but word has gotten out, and now the authorities are looking for them. Their lives are at risk. They don’t see that God is at work—not yet anyway. For all they know, they’re toast!
Then Rehab rescues the day. Yes, Rahab—an idol-worshipping, streetwalking, “lady of the night.” At great risk to her own life and that of her family, she hides the spies and tricks the authorities, making it possible for the two deep-cover Israelites to make it out alive. What the two spies didn’t know at the time was that God was working on their behalf by working on a prostitute, whom he would use in such a significant act of faith that her bravery would land her in God’s Great Hall of Faith. (cf., Hebrews 11:30-31)
As she spoke with the spies, this lady of questionable character was laying down some unquestionable theology: the work of God on Israel’s behalf was striking fear in the hearts of Israel’s enemies. The mighty acts of deliverance forty years prior in Egypt and over the decades of Israel’s wandering in the desert had been sending shock waves into the unseen realm, and the principalities and powers that opposed God, and everything of God, were quaking in their boots. God had been at work all along on Israel’s behalf, and they didn’t even know it.
What is interesting here is how the different actors respond. The enemies of God are fighting mad. The men of God are fleeing in fear. The woman of the night is responding in faith. And over it all, God is at work, fulfilling his purposes and perfecting everything that concerns his people—redeeming a prostitute, rescuing the spies, and redirecting the bounty hunters.
That is true for you, too. You may not see what God is up to, but he is up to good. He is fulfilling his purposes for his own glory and working out the details of your life for your good. Don’t let circumstances tell you otherwise. You may be tempted to flee in fear, and God’s enemies may be fighting mad—at both God and you. But at the same time, God will be repurposing even the most unlikely sources, the Rahabs in your world, as instruments of faith.
What you see isn’t all that is going on. Never forget that. And learn to trust God’s unseen but unstoppable work on your behalf.
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