Being Rahab: When Surrendering Is Really Tough

A couple of years ago, I woke up at 3:30 am. I’m an early morning person, but 3:30? Too early even for me. I tried to go back to sleep, but no. I gave up at 4:20.

I’m usually a great sleeper: sleeping like a log or like the dead both apply to me.

I woke up because I was scared.

I was scared because the Lord wanted me to reach out to more Christian women. Not exactly a terrifying prospect, but I was reaching out to help them and to tell them about my spiritual direction ministry.
No hard sells, just relationship building… but I was scared to death to do it. Scared that people would think less of me, wouldn’t trust me, thought I saw money when I looked at their profile pictures.

But the Lord created me to be a herald. I’m a speaker, actress, writer, and spiritual director. And men and women of God in the Bible weren’t cowering in their living rooms, not wanting people to judge them. As long as I was doing the Lord’s work, the outcome would belong to the Lord.

No Promised Land

And as long as I resisted heralding the work of God, He would not grow my ministry. I was scared that I would hesitate too long and be turned back from the Promised Land, which for me is guiding Christian women into deeper walks with God.

God did exactly that to the Hebrews. They reached the Promise Land in about one and a half years the first time.

Wouldn’t trust God. Wouldn’t take the risk.

And the Lord sent them back out into the desert for forty years.

And when the Hebrews came back, they were a warrior tribe, God’s army. And they obeyed.
But I didn’t want to wait for forty years instead of under two! I wanted to go in now… I wanted and needed to trust. But it was scary.

Being Rahab

Then the Lord reminded me of my workshop The Jericho Breakthrough, that follows the Bible story from the death of Moses to the fall of Jericho.

The fourth segment of the story is Rahab, when she decided to help the Hebrew spies and not betray then to Jericho’s king.

She had no guarantees. She couldn’t be sure that the Hebrews’ God was stronger than the gods she worshipped.

But she decided that He was, and she would help.

She did help—because she surrendered her fear to God to do the right thing for her and her family.
Rahab became an ancestor of Jesus Himself.

She’s also a brave symbol of surrendering to God, even when (especially when!) you don’t really want to. And honestly, who had it harder, a woman who faced her family’s murder? Or a woman who doesn’t like networking?

Um… that would be me. Not a good excuse. OK Lord. I’m all in.

Question: Is there something in your life that you need to surrender to God?