Thoughts on Rahab

One other thought that I had today about Rahab’s story is that God had to have known beforehand that she was the type of person who could have acted in faith to assist the Israelite spies, out of all the thousands of other people in Jericho at the time. So God had to place her in that city at that time so that she could intercept the spies and assist them. Then God had to arrange it so that her house was attached to the city wall so that the spies would have had easy and unsuspicious access to her and her house and so that they could have been let down outside of the city walls undetected. I mean, if it wasn’t right there, they probably could have come up with another plan that would have worked, especially with God’s protection on them, but that was a pretty easy plan. And then not only did God arrange for Rahab’s house to be situated in a place with easy access for the spies, but God had to walk them right up to her door. Of all the thousands of houses that might have been as easily accessible as Rahab’s, God walked the spies right up to the house of the only woman in the whole enormous city that believed in their same God and was willing to risk her life to assist them. God walked them right up to her door. Just like God walked Moses right to the door of the only priesthood holder in the whole area, Jethro when he could have gone literally anywhere else in the desert, God took him right there. Just like God walked Ruth right up to Boaz’s field.

I’m sure that Rahab and her family had lived in that house for many years before the spies showed up, so God’s planning to arrange everything to come together for that specific, short situation was years in the making. Think about it, that one interaction, and then later Rahab’s outcome, which we’ll go over when we get there, but all that effort, He put in for just that one situation. I look back through my life and all the things that I can see God’s hand in, especially recently with my family’s tragedy, and see how plans have been laid out for years, needles have been threaded over decades just to arrange specific situations and I think he has to make it so obvious because otherwise I wouldn’t see it. For Rahab, God would have had to arrange for her family to have enough money to buy a house, assuming that’s how it happened back then. He would have had to arrange it so that that specific house was available for them to buy. He would have had to arrange a meeting between buyer and seller, he would have had to arrange so that the family had enough money to keep and maintain the house, and that’s not even counting all the spiritual preparation that had to go into getting Rahab ready to recognize and accept Israel’s God as her own. All of that effort had to be put in just for that singular event that’s discussed in one short chapter in the Bible.

It's like the man who had been born blind that sat outside the city walls begging and when Christ came by the disciples asked “who sinned, this man or his parents?” and Christ answered that neither had sinned but that this man’s affliction was so that God could be glorified. Think about all the effort that had to go into arranging that situation just to be discussed for a few verses in the New Testament. It’s almost such a fast story that it barely is clocked as significant. This baby was born to parents blind, God had to arrange that. He had to keep that man alive for 38 years, he had to arrange for that man to sit at that specific gate, and then arrange for Jesus to be walking by that exact gate when the man was there. Then to think about all the suffering that the blind man and his family endured for 38 years just for that one simple interaction to be recorded in the Bible. I guess that’s minimizing the potential for what that man and his family did to spread the gospel after he was healed, which seems probable, maybe they made great contributions to the work afterward. But all the organization that God did beforehand just to arrange that one specific scenario is incredible.

Like Abish in the Book of Mormon. Her contribution lasted like 3 verses and honestly could have been arranged to be accomplished some other way, like it could have been someone else, it could have been one of the Nephite missionaries who called the people together and the raised the queen by the hand to wake her up, it didn’t have to be Abish. But for whatever reason, God deemed her contribution to the situation to be so fundamental that He spent decades preparing Abish’s father spiritual to receive, interpret, and then accept the gospel through a dream. Imagine the amount of spiritual preparation that it would take to convert a man through a dream and then for that man to teach and convert his family so that his DAUGHTER could be part of a narrative for just a few verses. Think about the effort God would have had to put into making that situation happen just for the smallest mention in scripture.

I think that Jesus curates my Instagram feed because I see videos all the time about conversion stories and they aren’t even usually LDS, just Christianity in general and these interviews are of people who at the right time, hear someone say something simple and suddenly the truth of the gospel hits them, or they are in the throws of death or addiction or violence or something terrible and they remember something they heard once and call on the name of Jesus and are saved, or see something, or they have a dream, or just all these different scenarios which aren’t profound or significant but that is the point where the Spirit speaks to them and they are ready to listen and give their life to Christ and I see hundreds of these interviews, hundreds of these testimonies of Jesus saving their souls at the exact moment that they are ready. It’s possible that some of these people are lying, but for what purpose? Christian internet fame? Like there are so many more successful ways to become internet famous than bearing a testimony of Christ and conversion online. And even if not all of them are truthful, most of them have to be and if even one is truthful, then think about all the effort that God puts in to that specific person’s conversion. God has to arrange all their circumstances so that they hit the point where they are ready to listen, then He has to be there right at that moment, not too soon, not too late, right on time. There are thousands of testimonies just like that, even Enos from the Book of Mormon had the Spirit bring his father’s words to his remembrance right when he was ready to listen. All the effort to arrange very specific circumstances to lead to very specific outcomes.

I’m lazy by nature, or more like I’m exhausted by nature so for me to put effort into something takes a lot of motivation, and I look at so many circumstances around me that God arranged, not by removing our free will but by knowing us, knowing what conversion would take for us and then making that situation happen. I’m just baffled by the amount of effort God puts in to making these arrangements. So when I look at my own life and my own circumstances and that of my family, and I see God’s hand in arranging certain things, how can I see that and not think to Rahab, and all the arrangements that God had to make for her to be in the right place at the time to assist in Israel’s military victory over Jericho. How can I look at all the arrangements God has made in my own life and even though some are devastating to me, how can I look at them and not see that consistently that whatever God has arranged is for our good, even if it doesn’t look like it at the time. I’m sure when Moses had to flee Egypt into the desert, he didn’t see that as a good thing, but look where it led him, he never could have accomplished what God needed him to accomplish if he had stayed in Egypt, so God had to arrange for him to be removed, even if through violence. Makes a lot of sense for my current situation. Moses made a terrible choice to kill that Egyptian, but God used it to get him ready to do a mighty work for Him.

God spends decades, sometimes generations, arranging “perfect storm” scenarios to bring forth his purposes. What is the statistical probabilities of Moses walking right to Jethro’s camp? What is the statistical probability of Abish being the only convert to God in her community, working directly for the queen already, and then being there when the queen fell, recognizing God in it, and being ready to recognize the Spirit’s prompting to go get all the people, then raising the queen up when it got dicey? What are the odds that she would be there ready to do all that at that moment of time? What is the statistical probability of the Israelite spies walking right to Rahab’s door? I would say slim to none. And these situations happen ALL THE TIME! They happen throughout all our individual lives, and what are the odds? I think these are things that can only be seen in hindsight, it’s like miracles for me, I rarely recognize them when they happen, and usually when they happen, they appear to me to be something negative, it’s only usually years later when I can look back and see God’s hand in it and how it worked out for my benefit.

Maybe that’s my lesson here, just because I don’t know what God’s end result is here, just because it appears negative, doesn’t mean that it won’t work out for my good, and the good of my family. God has consistently only worked in my favor, He’s never worked against me according to His will, I’ve just been looking at the wrong goals. I’ve been looking at how God hasn’t fulfilled what I wanted to happen, that He hasn’t given me what I wanted, but maybe that’s not the point. I always just assumed, probably like everyone else that what I want is best for me long term, and that’s just not true. I make terrible decisions, I consistently self-sabotage, I am short sighted, and narrow minded. I make decisions based on incredibly limited information and viewpoints and I want things based on trauma responses, I probably couldn’t make a healthy decision even if I spent a lifetime researching it, so why am I so angry at God for not giving me what I want, when I’ve consistently shown that what I want is bad for me? God has always done what’s best for me, and I usually don’t see it for a long time. He’s always done what’s best for everyone, and the scriptures and apparently Instagram are filled with accounts of other people demonstrating that that’s true.

With my whole “God isn’t real, you’re crazy and making all this up,” the world is full of examples that that statement is not true. I can look to millions of other people who subscribe to my same belief, I can look to the scriptures to see these God patterns of just the sheer amount of effort God puts into making these arrangements. I can look to all the intellectual teachings that make sense to me for all this to be true. But I think most importantly, I can look to all my personal experiences, miracles, testimonies, and teachings of the Spirit that this is true, that I’m not crazy or making any of this up. It goes back to Rahab and Nathaniel and the verses in Helaman 6:35-36 that says “and thus we see that the Lord began to pour out his Spirit upon the Lamanites, because of their easiness and willingness to believe in his word.” How much time am I going to spend fighting against what Jesus is trying to teach me? The Lamanites got more because they were easy to teach and willing to believe. Rahab believed because she heard a story, Nathaniel believed because Jesus made one statement to him, the same with the woman at the well in Samaria, Abish’s father believed after a dream. And here I am with a lifetime of experiences, miracles, and personal hands on teachings from the Spirit daily, and I’m still like “meh, maybe.” Like what am I doing.

Interestingly, when I was looking up that verse from Helaman, I noticed a verse that I had highlighted a while ago in Alma 13:24 that speaks to exactly what we were talking about earlier, saying “For behold, angels are declaring it unto many at this time in our land; and this is for the purpose of preparing the hearts of the children of men to receive his word at the time of his coming in his glory.” Look at all the arrangements He’s making, look at all the effort He’s putting into creating very specific scenarios that He knows we need to bring His work forward. I saw a comment on a testimony video once that said something like, “God told me, ‘look at all this work I did and you were nowhere around.’” This really spoke to me because I am not capable of controlling enough of my environment to the point of being effective at all. I’m so worried about my kids and I know that I can’t control any of the situations they encounter, I can’t control their lives, I can’t control their conversion, I can’t control anything and that is so terrifying to me because I don’t want them to suffer, I want them to have good, happy lives and to be good people but I can’t control any of that, so I think that worrying is the only thing I can do to have any impact, but that’s not true. Look at everything God has arranged, even in my own life, look at everything He has done. I’m not capable of doing any of it. I have to trust that all his arrangements are for my good. God’s made us promises, and I have to trust His promises and look to what He’s already done to have faith that He will fulfill them, even if I can’t see it right now. It’s hard, it’s exhausting, but look what He’s already done and what He’s promised to do.