A Story All Its Own
Joshua 6:22, Joshua 6:25
But to the two men who had spied out the land, Joshua said, “Go into the prostitute’s house and bring out from there the woman and all who belong to her, as you swore to her.” … And she has lived in Israel to this day, because she hid the messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho.
The Author of history has given us everything we need for life and godliness in these sixty-six books, but there’s no doubt He’s reserved some of the most personal chapters for heaven’s vast library. To think that every thought, word, and deed has been meticulously chronicled. That all the quiet prayers offered in prison cells and emergency rooms and battlefields and orphanages have been collected in their entirety. That all the lonely laments and pitiful cries that started out with some form of the plea, “God, why have You forsake me?”, but ended in the consoling triumph of hope relieved, “Why are you downcast O my soul? Hope in God—I will yet praise Him!”, have been recorded, is of great encouragement to me.
No doubt there’s a scroll on the top shelf of that biographical treasure trove called ‘Rahab’s Diary,’ and I can’t keep my mind from grasping at it the way a child grasps at the cookie jar in the pantry. To know what Rahab was thinking and crying out and arguing during these six days as the men of Israel ominously marched around Jericho’s walls. How the devil must’ve clamored against the door of her heart, thrusting her out of bed in the middle of the night in a pool of anguished sweat, terrorizing her mind with thoughts like these: “Will God accept me? Will the spies keep their word? Did I weave a long enough cord? Will my housemates turn me in?! I can’t just sit here waiting like a bird in a cage—I must do something—no, I can’t! I can only wait! Oh God of Abraham and Moses—oh my God! I believe—but help my unbelief!”
Friend, today, if you find yourself walled in by anxious uncertainty, take comfort from Isaiah 40:31: “But they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”