This was my Publisher's Point from October 7th. May it cheer your day. 
Publisher’s Point: The Rope Of Hope
The word “hope” has taken a bit of a beating lately, especially when it is used in the context of the phrase “and change.” People of every political persuasion are backing away from the use of a perfectly good word that is honored in Scripture, and recently I learned something about the word “hope” that I find fascinating. Most of us are familiar with the story of Rahab the harlot, who earned a place in the “Hall of Faith” mentioned in the book of Hebrews.
Controversy rages over whether or not Rahab was indeed a harlot, or perhaps only an innkeeper, but one thing is for sure, she was one gutsy gal. She found herself in a position where no matter what she did, she was, as they say, running a good chance of ending up “toast.” She lied to the king of Jericho re: the location of the spies, (which gives rigid ethicists fits, by the way,) and stood to lose her head. Conversely, she had no assurance of survival other than the word of two men who were the contemporary equivalents of Mossad team members, and they were coming with their army to take over her land. Any way it went down, it was not going to be pretty.
But what they gave her was a tangible representation of hope. When the two spies told Rahab to attach a scarlet thread to her window so they would know to spare her and the family she had gathered within her walls, the Hebrew word “tikvah” actually is interchangeable for either the word “hope” or “cord,” or, for the sake of rhyme, “rope.” In essence they told her to attach a “rope of hope” to her window, which could symbolize her perspective and the need to keep hope for being saved to the uttermost at the forefront of her visage.
With that “rope of hope” hanging down in the middle of her window, she had to see it first, or perhaps see past it, before she saw the oncoming armies. And just as the Angel of Death passed over the houses of those Israelites who painted the blood of a freshly slain lamb over their doors and lintel posts, Rahab and her family were not only spared, she was actually included in the Messianic line.
The moral of the story is this: we live in some of the wildest times ever, and things that used to be solid are tottering. In other words, “everything which can be shaken, will be shaken.” But I believe that because God is good, if we will consciously choose to keep the perspective of a hope that saves because of a God that sees and loves, our decision to cling to the “rope of hope” will perhaps not earn us a “plaque on the wall” described in Hebrews 11, but it will make our Savior smile, and nothing beats that, ever.
