Rahab

Rahab was a prostitute... many times we try to clean up what someone was in the past... the bible does not try to pretend she was anything other than a prostitute...
what would we say about a prostitute? we would in our righteous self say that she is filthy and nasty and does the unmentionable things that real women will not do... whatever... my perception of a prostitute is someone who is very skilled at a trade... and lets put it out there... women get mad worrying that their skills are not comparable... that is why she has to be looked at as so dirty... but what I really see a prostitute as is someone that a man can be free with... he can be open and honest with her and know that she has been so judged in her life that she would not judge him... they say that many times men pay women (prostitutes) just to talk... isn't that a sad situation if he has a wife that he cannot tell her his innermost thoughts... how do you become a wife that your husband can't talk to?...
back to Rahab... so the spies of Israel are hidden by Rahab the prostitute.. and they promise her their lives for her families lives... they spare her family because she spared them... one of the amazing things of the story is the fact that God spoke to her, even though she was not an Israelite... she states that she knew that God had given the land to them and that God had opened the Red Sea and that all the people of her country were afraid of them because of who their God was... we tend to think that God only speaks to the saved and that is not true... He speaks to whomever He chooses....
so as the story goes on... that the Israelites overcome the city and kill everyone in it with the exception of Rahab and her family and over time.. Rahab is given in marriage to Salmon... one of the men who had been at her house as a spy... and she is one of the few women that is listed in the geneology of not only David... but Jesus...
how often do we judge people not by their heart, but by their appearance or their past.... and the bible tells us that God looks not upon the countenance of a man... but upon the spirit within him... I can't tell you how thankful I am that God is willing to overlook who we were and who we still are and focus on our spirit and who He sees us as in the future...

02.22.11 I read back over this.. and while I agree with what I wrote.. I am amazed at how God has transformed my mind over this period of 2 1/2 years... thank you Lord!!