When we head to the grocery store, we have a goal. Bring home the groceries.
If the pantry is full, and our spouse sends us to the grocery store anyway, are we there to window shop? Is it just an exercise in entertainment for entertainment’s sake? Or does our spouse have an ulterior motive?
What about when we feel that God sends us on a useless mission? We feel certain we are to witness to our neighbor, and we are thrown out the door with a volley of curses. We receive the job offer we’ve trusted for, only to move a thousand miles to work under an intolerable boss. Or we sell all we own to enter the mission field, only to find the mission field doesn’t want us, and we return home defeated.
Why does God send us on useless missions? It is because he has an ulterior motive.
In Joshua 2:1 Joshua acted on God’s direction. He sent two of his men to spy out the land, giving them very specific orders to enter Jericho in the process. There was no military reason for the spies to enter Jericho. The children of Israel were not ready to attack the city. No, God had another reason entirely. God planned to add a harlot to the bloodline of his Son, Jesus.
We all know the story of how the two spies came to an inn (probably a house of ill repute) to stay a time. The inn was also the home of Rahab, a harlot. Did the spies know she was a harlot? Probably not. Then why, oh why, did God choose such a place for them to reside?
Rahab had faith in her heart.
Rahab is the Bible’s best example that faith has little to do with good deeds or upright living. Her faith was a willingness to see the hand of God when it was held out to her, and to grasp it to obtain her salvation.
Do we have Rahab’s faith? She wasn’t rescued that day. Nearly five chapters later, the Israelites marched around her city, and she must have quaked in fear as she trusted in the red cord hanging out of her window. God had sent her a promise of redemption and then disappeared. Now her world was about to collapse around her feet. Where had God gone? Had he abandoned her?
When God sends us on a useless mission, are we able to trust him? Are we able to say, “Although he abandons me, yet will I follow him”? Do we have Rahab’s faith?
When we grasp the hand of God, he will lead us just where we need to go, and others will find redemption through us.
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