How a Prostitute Changed the Way I Think, Believe, And Live My Life

Life is complicated.  I’ll give you that.

It was so much simpler when I was younger.  All I needed was a bowl of lucky charms and some Saturday morning cartoons….and I was happy.

Today we have more choices, more opportunities, and more confusion than ever.

There is an expert for everything.  One will tell you eggs are bad, another will say eggs are good.  One will tell you to exercise before you eat, another will tell you to exercise 30 minutes after eating.  One will tell you the earth is slowly warming up and will eventually kill us all, and another will say relax and chill.

Who do we trust?

Many Christians will turn to the Bible for answers.   Some see this as the ultimate authority.  (Even though  Jesus never says the Bible is the ultimate authority, but that’s a conversation for another day)

For non-religious folks, trust becomes the ultimate question.  And the answer comes to the only person you can trust is your self.  Most of these folks are highly intelligent, so trusting in their own lines of logic makes perfect sense.  After all, they’re smart.

But both groups are actually looking for a higher authority to help them make their decisions.

That higher authority is difficult to describe.  I’ll call it the Path.

The Path is the way of living in the world.  The right way.  Because in the end most Christians and Non-Christians will agree that there is a right and wrong.  They may disagree on the details, but they live their lives as if this Path exists.

I’ll give you an example.  I had an atheist friend tell me there was no such thing as right or wrong.  But when confronted with Evil, such as child trafficking, he had to concede that yes there was a right way to live and a wrong way to live.

So, the question comes back to… how do we know?

And again, Protestant Christians would turn to the Bible.  Having a written code can be very helpful, but I’d argue that the Bible should teach HOW to think and not WHAT to think.

This is probably why so many religious type folks seem a bit schizophrenic with their morality.  They’ll say things like love your neighbor, while making racist remarks.  They’ll say things like “Pro-Life” but then never adopt.  They’ll talk about giving money to the poor while building a very big, very weird, and very expensive house (not talking about anyone specific here guys 😉

But this isn’t intended to bash Christians or point out hypocrisy.  We’re all hypocrites and no one is perfect.

I know atheists that wallow in self misery and selfishness.  They believe in nothing and no one and are crushed by the meaninglessness in their life, so they live an Epicurean journey that just leaves them empty inside.

For me, I believe in God.  And I believe God breathes life into all of us and gives each of us a purpose.  I just don’t take everything in the Bible as literal, and I don’t think you should either.

I guess by now, I’ve pissed off any and everyone that might be reading this.

Now we can get to the story.

Rahab is a hero of the Old Testament.  She was an innkeeper and prostitute.

She was um…….”visited” by some Hebrew spies as they were staking out the land and trying to decide on the best way to conquer it.  Some of the locals were looking for the spies.  They came to Rahab, but she hid the Hebrews and saved their lives.

Later, in the New Testament, Rahab would be listed as a person of faith that was counted as RIGHTEOUS due to her actions.

But why is this so interesting?

Because it proves that life is not black or white.

She lied.

And it was her lie that was her RIGHTEOUS action.

The reason this is important is because if you read the Bible like a list of rules, you’ll miss the point.

Rahab wasn’t worried about the 10 commandments.  The whole “Thou shalt not bear false witness” wasn’t a concern for her.  Her concern was doing the right thing at the right time…..i.e. saving these guys lives.

Had she read Proverbs 16:19 literally, then she might have had trouble figuring out what to do.

These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,  A heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,  A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

—Proverbs 6:16-19

My point is not that it’s okay to lie.

My point is….

That life is complicated.   And our actions must adapt to our situation.

The authority that we should appeal to is not the Bible or any other book.  But the Spirit.

The Spirit of Truth.

The Spirit of Right.

You can call it the Way.  Or the Path.  Or whatever you want.  But it’s the thing that connects us all.  A deeper permeation of time and space and everything in between.  It’s God’s gift to us.

Another thing to understand about the story of Rahab is this: You can’t judge a book by its cover.  In other words, people aren’t their past.  They’re not their social media profile.  They’re not their job.  Humans have an amazing capacity for being good.  So don’t be too quick to judge someone.  Give people room to improve and to grow.

When you start to read religious text, philosophy, or just any good story as teaching you HOW to think instead of WHAT to think, you will change the world.

When you start to get into the dirt and the weeds, you’ll find a whole lot of people that are struggling just to survive.  They may look different than you.  They may have different customs.  They may even call God by a different name than you do.  But we are all connected and we’re all searching for meaning in this life.

So let’s all pray that our beliefs not become our truth but that TRUTH becomes our beliefs.

And maybe we can make it through this thing.

Together.

p.s.

But don’t listen to me.  I’m just a guy that spends most of his time with drug addicts and my favorite bible character is a forgotten prostitute…what the hell do I know?

p.p.s.

If you haven’t bought a copy of my book and thrown it into the garbage yet, now’s the time.