While We Wait..We learn to believe

"How Can It Be"
Lauren Diagle

Today's Focus: 

Rahab

A Woman Whose Reputation Preceded Her 

&

Was Noted as A Hero of Faith

"Rahab has had a line waiting out her back door. Men lined up at her inn, wanting a place to lie down- and a piece of her. In a town with no Sabbaths, no lines of God's Word ever read, no prophets with a message of a coming visitation from heaven, she's one woman alone with the grime of too many nights on her hands, the weight of too many wounds on her heart- a woman who looks up in her godless mess and sees the tenderness of God. In a place of faithlessness and doubtfulness and godlessness, God gives God." Ann Voskamp

Rahab was a woman with a reputation.

The world gave her a red scarlet letter to wear over her heart
&
Shamed Her

but Jesus gave her His scarlet thread of grace and wrapped it around her heart
&
Rescued Her:)

I can relate to Rahab.. She was only doing what she knew to do to get by. She thought this was life.. and how you lived it. She was not living.. She was merely surviving.. and doing what it took to do so..

That's what life does if we live it without Jesus

it takes

God saw Rahab. He saw her heart. Her heart was good... because He gave Her that very heart. The one that so desperately wanted to give itself.. selflessly.. just like the giver. He programmed her heart to be like that.. like His.. to give.. and the world took and took and took..

To the world her heart looked dead

But 

God saw a ripe heart 

ready to be filled. 

&
He waits
&
She turns

"God, who can reveal Himself wherever, whenever, to whomever; the God who is never limited by lack or restricted to the expected; the God who is no respecter of persons but the relentless rescuer of prodigals; the God who gives the gift of faith in the places you'd most doubt. That is always the secret to the abundant life; to believe that God is where you doubt He can be." -Ann Voskamp

I met God in a place of desperateness.. in a place I needed Him.. in a place I hadn't prepared to meet Him.. I hadn't been preparing to meet Him.. The point I'm trying to make is its not what we've done that makes us ready or acceptable to Him..

It's what we do

we turn

we believe

These are the "do's" He's looking for

When He looked at Rahab.. He saw the beautiful heart He created.. He saw her as the perfect creation He made her to be.. the one who couldn't see  her true self was her.. He wanted to open her eyes to see what He saw..so her heart that wanted to give like His would be transformed to do so..

To give Holy Love

&

Holy Grace

Just like we wait on Him .. He also waits so patiently for us. We live without Him.. because we don't know what living with Him is like.. The world lures us into believing we should be independent.. do it all on our own. Yet if that is how we live.. we usually only do what we know.. what others have done before us. We follow others who are not following a loving Jesus.. We follow others who have been disappointed by Jesus.. who think Jesus is not for them.. or for their good.. and we find ourselves disappointed too.. surviving .. not living.. 

However.. that doesn't bother Jesus

all He's looking for is a heart

willing to turn

willing to believe

willing to trust

and for most of us

we find this kind of heart

when the world has nothing left to offer our broken hearts

He's always waiting

He's always offering

Himself
His Grace

"Rahab, in a godless place with a godless past, believes fully- and so lives fully. She steps out not in competence.. but faith. She serves not her admires but her adversaries. She saves the greatest gift for  her family- a place of grace.. she risks to live."- Ann Voskamp

Isn't that what we all want? 

to live

Fully and abundantly

so 

We risk

and when we do

we live

we find life

and we save a place of grace for our family.

We all need grace.. and I cant think of anything better to give your family... grace... Jesus.. If we follow Jesus.. they will follow Jesus. They will do what they know to do.. follow grace and be made righteous by believing.. not by striving and doing.. That's what I want more than anything for my girls.. to know that they don't have to make themselves.. God has already done that.. They only need to rest in His grace.. Love will shape their lives.. and move them along the path He has created for them. His story for them is filled with Glory..

Just like Rahb.. the one who believed.. the one who Jesus chose to be in His family tree:)

How Can it be.. 

"You plead my cause

You right my wrongs

You break my chains

You overcome

You gave Your life

To give me mine

You say that I am free

How can it be

How can it be"