Our long list of faith-believing heroes continues. We see Abraham with his son, Isaac, and are reminded that even after this miracle child was born, God asked for more faith. No wonder Abraham was the father of the nation. His trust in God was extraordinary. We follow the progress of Isaac and his descendants to Egypt and out of Egypt, lingering over Moses, whose mother and father trusted God for his life and sent him off in a basket alone as an infant trusting God would give him safe harbor. Incredible stories emerge all the way to the taking of the land of Israel itself.
I love that Rahab is the last person listed in this section. Rahab. Just think about that! She wasn’t Jewish. She wasn’t even “good” in the moral sense of the word. She was a prostitute. Yet she believed that Israel’s God was God. She hid the spies and she trusted in the one true God enough to ask that she be rescued so she could live among a people not her own. She is most definitely on my list of women to meet in Heaven. I can’t imagine what her life must have been like, living in a city so far gone that God needed to destroy it. Yet somehow she knew to choose Him.
One of the really special things about Rahab, of course, was that she was the mother of Boaz. Boaz, of course, married Ruth – another foreign woman who left her country to follow the one true God. These women were welcomed by God to the degree that their great grandson/grandson was King David from whose lineage came Jesus, Son of God. Wow and wow.
There are so many phenomenal reminders of God’s faithfulness in this section. Which one resonated most with you? What verse did you zero in on for focus and prayer? I want to know. It’s a stellar list of “everyday people” who did extraordinary things because they trusted God. They weren’t super rich or famous or talented. What they all shared in common was faith. Let’s be like them.
My verse: Hebrews 11:30, “It was by faith that the people of Israel marched around Jericho for seven days, and the walls came crashing down.”
My response: Oh, Father God! The strange commands You sometimes give. Thank You for all the times You ask us to do the unlikely so You get the glory and it’s clear Who the Rescuer really is! Help me to be obedient when You ask me to do the unlikely …
