When I was an unbeliever, I was familiar with some of the more famous Bible stories, such as Noah and the Flood, Moses leading the Israelites in the Exodus, or Abraham and Sarah receiving God’s promise of a son. I also knew there was a man named Jesus who some claimed rose from the dead. However, with my shameful past, none of these stories attracted me to God or the Bible.
A Shameful Past
I was fourteen years old when I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol. By the time I was seventeen, I had a fake ID and was going to nightclubs. Because I loved to dance, every night at the club was one big party. Dancing. Drinking. Flirting. If you had asked me then if I was having fun, I confess that I would have answered with a resounding “Yes!” Some nights I even brought my camera. If I was having fun, I wanted pictures to hold onto the memories. It seemed only natural to have pictures of my friends and me partying at the clubs. But soon the nightclub scene opened the door to more poor choices. Drinking led to harder drugs—even cocaine. Flirting led to sleeping with men I hardly knew.
Years later, after God called me to follow Him, I was looking for something in my hall closet and came across those old photo albums. Seeing the pictures of me dancing in bars with a haughty smile on my face, I was repulsed. I began to tear up the photographs.
Though I experienced shame seeing those photographs, tearing up the photos was also a tangible reminder that my old life is past; I am no longer who I once was (2 Corinthians 5:17). Even so, there are things that still remind me of my past. To this day, I am very selective about the kind of music I listen to. Music and lyrics have a powerful effect on a person’s thoughts and emotions (God designed us that way). For me, the wrong kind of music and suggestive lyrics immediately bring to mind nightclub scenes and memories of my shameful past. That’s what sin does: first it entices us, then it degrades us, then it condemns us. As I looked at the photographs, I knew I could not erase my past, but I decided I did not need to hold onto it, either.
Have you ever experienced a time when you felt that your past disqualified you from serving God in some way? I imagine most of us have struggled with these thoughts at one time or another.
This is one of the reasons why I am so attracted to the messy stories in the Bible—like Rahab the prostitute living in the wicked city of Jericho just as God’s people were preparing to take the Promised Land. Rahab had not been raised in a community of believers or worshiping the God of Israel. Yet, the stories of how the Lord saved His people from slavery and gave them victory over their enemies did not fall on deaf ears. Had someone told Rahab that God would one day call her into His covenant family and weave her into the ancestry of the Savior of the world, can you picture her laughing out loud? With her shameful past, surely God would never choose someone like her.
Or would He?
Rahab was a prostitute. I was a party girl. The Israelites worshiped demons (Numbers 25:1-3). If not having a shameful past is a requirement for being chosen by God, there would be no one left to choose. God is not ashamed of those He redeems. He loves to take the broken, the sinful, and the outcast and transform them into witnesses of His power and grace. How else will the world recognize His marvelous grace?
Sometimes I wonder what might have happened had someone taken the time to tell me about the unsung heroes of the Bible—heroes like Hagar, the runaway slave girl who gave God a name; or the demoniac who became the first gentile evangelist; or Tamar, who, disguised as a prostitute, conceived by her father-in-law and ended up in the ancestry of Christ. Or Rahab who risked her life to help the Israelite spies. Maybe nothing would have happened. Maybe everything would have changed.
All I know is that I can relate much easier to these kinds of stories. The stories are messy, the characters made mistakes, but in the end, God redeemed each one of them. There is something beautiful about seeing God at work in the messy stories.
In the New Testament, the theme continues. Jesus invited people just like Rahab to follow Him. He was often accused of shocking behavior, including breaking the law and even being demon-possessed! Jesus Himself acknowledged what people were saying about Him: “Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” (Matthew 11:19).
A friend of sinners. What a beautiful title for the Savior of a fallen world.
“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” —John 15:13
This excerpt is adapted from Shadia Hrichi’s latest Bible study, RAHAB: Rediscovering the God Who Saves Me. Used with permission.
—Written by Shadia Hrichi. Used by permission from the author.
