Mother, wife, daughter, sister. Teacher, student, leader, disciple. Kind, mean, patient, inflexible. I have been given these titles over my life, and many many more. It is human nature to wonder what titles will stick. Which title will be attached to our legacy after we are gone? We give a lot of weight to these titles; we allow them to shape how we see ourselves, which in turn shapes our behavior. But man bestows all these titles.
Lately, when people in our lives begin to complain about being misunderstood, or unfairly judged, my mom has taken to asking “How would you like to have been known as Rahab the harlot (Joshua 6) throughout all of history”. Harlot was the title. The descriptive that was given to her by man. That one word summed up everything that society thought was important about her. Rahab’s social status, her employment, her moral standing, her value. But as we read through Joshua, we can see that harlot was not the way that God viewed her. He took a woman who was discarded as “lesser than” by society and elevated her to be one of the heroes of Isreal. Rahab, through her actions, is shown to be brave, faithful to her family and God, insightful and intuitive. Through her actions, we see that she was intelligent, quick on her feet, and selfless. She hid the Israeli spies and helped to deliver Jericho to the Israelites. God saw who she was, the real Rahab without the flaws, scars trauma and sin. He saw who she was made to be, not who others claimed her to be. God saw past the sin, to the real creation.
Rahab is far from unique in scripture. Take another example, Gideon. The son of Joash was hiding in a winepress threshing wheat when an angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior” (Judges 6:12). Mighty Warrior! Gideon was hiding, threshing wheat to keep it from the Midianites and God called him mighty warrior! I very much doubt that either of those words would have been ones that Gideon used to describe himself, much less ones anyone else would have used. In fact, rather than feel honored at being addressed and chosen, Gideon instead asked why God had abandoned His people. And I doubt that Gideon was feeling very mighty when he obeyed God and destroyed the altars to Baal, that led to his people calling for his execution. Even then, Gideon continued to have faith, but he didn’t grab a sword to prove his warrior status, he instead grabbed a fleece and pointed to God. It was only then, that God used Gideon to raise up an army to save Isreal. Often, we see God in the Old Testament, and Jesus in the New, elevating men and women who had been discarded as “lesser than.” Women who were widows, unmarried, prostitutes, child-less, diseased. Men who were blind, lepers and disabled. Women who had been given a title showing that they were undesirable and unwanted. Men who were discarded as useless and a burden. They were cast out. Many of these men and women were even lower than being mocked, they were ignored and erased from everyday life.
Despite the titles bestowed by man, God elevated these people. And even more amazing, they didn’t need to work first to change their title for God to do it. Rahab didn’t change careers before he sent the spies to her. God saw past the sin, the grime, the accoutrements, and debris of life, to the person. Rahab only needed to have faith. Gideon didn’t need to win a fight to be called warrior. He was even allowed to doubt and question God; he just had to believe that God was with him.
So often I fall into the trap that I need to “fix myself” before I come before God. That I need to prove my worth or embody the “right title.” I place my own value in the labels that man has assigned me. I am motivated to define myself by the lens that I have developed based on the narrative I have told myself, or that has been told about me. I give more weight to the opinions of man, or my own desires, than that of God. But that is the exact opposite of what He asks of us. God simply asks that we have faith (Galatians 2:20). If we have faith, God will be faithful to transform us and cleanse us (Phil 1:6). God knows who we are past the grime, the scars, the filth, and the sin. God knows who He made us to be in complete perfection. God is the author of our lives, who knit us together in our mothers’ wombs (Psalm 139:13). He knows who we truly are, even when our outward appearance may be the antithesis of His calling. Faith means trusting Him to reveal who He has proclaimed we are. Not the labels assigned to us by man, and not the faulty lens that we view ourselves. Faith means stepping into the role, and trusting that He knows better than we do, better than man. I don’t need to believe in the title or the label that God has called out for me, I just need to believe in Him and be faithful to obey.