God and Anyone (Dissatisfaction with Life -- Part 3)

Over the years I have wanted-to-be many things, from a volleyball player with a mean spike to a musical artist with a range like Mariah Carey. I have always wished I were born with the body of an athlete and the mind of a genius. And I always wanted -- for just one time in my life -- to be the first pick for someone’s team.

Yeah, I have always wondered what it would be like to be a first round draft pick. I wouldn’t know. I have instead typically resided in the unenviable category of last pick of the day…you really need one more person on your team…or there is no one else left to choose from and she has a pulse and her legs are not broken. Were it for my heart and drive, I would have been the star player I craved to be. But where God and my momma gave me determination, they didn’t pass on any (as the teens would say) “mad skills” in the athletic department.

True, I always wanted to be picked first in a schoolyard game of Red Rover. But sooner than later in my life, I had to surrender the fantasy that it would, in fact, be me. It was a good life lesson that I would need in many other instances in my future but certainly not an easy one for me to swallow at a young age. Or at any age, really.

No one wants to be left out or passed by or picked over. It just plain hurts to know we were not the one someone wanted or needed and someone else was thought to be more valuable to the team. We so believe we can do it if someone will just give us the chance to prove it. We have something to offer, and we just need someone else to believe that it’s true.

Really, if you boil it all down, we all want someone to believe in us.

Rahab is a woman who can likely relate to not being picked for the team. She was, after all, a woman of great compromise but not of great reputation. By all accounts, Rahab was a prostitute who entertained many men in her home, doing who knows what. The Bible doesn’t try to smooth over the fact that she got around. (Joshua 2; Hebrews 11:3; James 2:25) As always, whether comfortable with the truth or not, God consistently calls it like He sees it. And Rahab had been sexually involved with many men. As a result, she endured both indignance and social ostracism.

Rahab was definitely not first round draft pick material.

So when God -- by way of Joshua -- by way of two spies -- entered the scene and her home, it seemed that they were only looking for a place of refuge from imminent danger. But in reality, God was looking for much, much more.

He was looking for a teammate.

From the outside looking in, Rahab was kind of a weird choice. I mean, for a last pick of the day—she has a pulse and her legs aren’t broken kind of girl, she wasn’t used to being drafted in the first round. But with God, His choices don’t have to make sense, but they are always divinely genius. God didn’t choose Rahab because she was worthy. God didn’t choose Rahab because she was politically correct. God didn’t choose Rahab because she was the most capable, most together, or most popular girl in town. God chose Rahab because she believed in Him, and she was willing to let Him make her a star in His big picture movie.

For what it’s worth, I happen to think God picked Rahab because of her imperfections, not despite them. Neither she nor God was surprised by what she did for a living. They both knew the intimate details of her life, rather intimately. But when she was cast in God’s big picture movie, she didn’t try to excuse herself or outline the reasons to God of why she couldn’t perform. She didn’t tell Him she was too damaged. She didn’t try to persuade Him to use someone else. She just took it at face value that if the Almighty Captain of Team God had picked her in the first round, she must be needed on the team for a reason.

Because when God picked Rahab, they became an amazingly unstoppable team.

The truth is...God and anyone make an amazingly unstoppable team.

I think that deep down inside of us, all of us want to be picked for the amazingly unstoppable team. We say we want to do more for God, but do we, really? We say we desire to be used by Him. We say we will abandon all to pick up what He is laying down right in front of us. But then we get scared and bail. We ask Him if He is sure. We question Him as to whether or not He knows what He is doing. And we carefully outline to Him all the reasons He shouldn’t pick us – all the failures and flaws and mess-ups we have done along the way that prevent us from performing. We aren’t worthy to be picked in the draft, we tell Him. So the Almighty Captain waits patiently for His teammate in us to finally say “yes” and join Him on the field.

It’s not that God couldn’t pick someone else for His team, by the way. He can, He will, and He does. His big movie picture will go on, regardless of whether we play a role in it or not. But He wants us and pursues us so He can give us the fulfillment in life we crave by seeing what He is doing and joining Him there. And for a girl who never, ever got picked for anything first, playing on Team God after being drafted in the first round had to have been the ultimate in player satisfaction for Rahab.

See, when the spies came to Rahab, she was headed down a road to find herself. As Herbert Lockyer noted in his exposition of her in his book, All the Women of the Bible, “Like many a young girl today perhaps [Rahab] found the restrictions of her respectable home too irksome. She wanted a freer life, a life of thrill and excitement, away from the drab monotomy of the home giving her birth and protection. So, high-spirited and independent she left her parents, set up her own apartment with dire consequences.”

While Rahab sent the spies down a different road to avoid them being discovered, at the same time, she took herself down a road of a spiritual kind – one that she had never before been on. For once in her life, she allowed herself to be picked for the team. And in so doing, she discovered a feeling of value like she never knew in her previous life of cheap moments and passing fulfillment.

What about you? Do you want to be picked for God’s team? Or are you too busy explaining away why God can’t and won’t use you. Rest assured that He has already chosen you in the first draft. He is keeping your spot wide open. It’s all up to you to realize that bench sitting is a thing of your past.

Because God and anyone make an amazingly unstoppable team.

Lisa