AN UNLIKELY CANDIDATE

“I know the Lord has given you this land,” she told them. “We are afraid of you. Everyone in the land is living in terror. For we have heard how the Lord made a dry path for you through the Red Sea when you left Egypt. And we know what you did to Sihon and Og, the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River, whose people you completely destroyed. No wonder our hearts have melted in fear! No one has the courage to fight after hearing such things. For the Lord your God is the supreme God of the heavens above and the earth below.” (Joshua 2:8-10, NIV)

Rahab was a pagan, a Canaanite and a prostitute—three things that might make many assume she would never be interested in God. Yet, if you read the verses preceding these words to the spies she has hidden, you would see how she risked everything for a God she barely knew. She based her risk solely on the stories she had heard about these men and what God did for them.

Last week our pastor challenged us to a 30-day Daniel fast to renew our vision for the lost. Along side this call, I am preparing to portray a prostitute in a sketch to be presented in a couple of weeks during one of the church services—talk about irony!

Many people in my sphere of influence don’t know God. And I hold little faith that some of them ever will. What influences this decision? Is it his outward appearance, the occupation she holds, the harsh words he spews, his dependence upon alcohol or drugs, her family background, his controlling nature, her beliefs about evolution or that he is of a different faith? Yes.

The call to this fast reminds me—along with the verses above—that I am not the judge of who will ultimately make the choice to know God. I hold finite knowledge into the lives of the people who God places in my path. And I cannot understand the full impact the story of my own journey may have in bringing someone to a saving relationship with Christ.

So this fast—and the part I play in the sketch—are working together to build my faith in a God who is bigger than the box I put him in. I won’t be concerned with the illusion of the visible…but with the manifestation of the impossible. It is simply my duty to share my story, pray and leave the rest to God.