Bible in a Year, Day 20: Jacob's Ladder and the God Who Meets You

Today's reading

Today's reading is Genesis 28, and Pastor Jack Graham focuses on what God says to Jacob in his dream and how Jacob responds when he wakes.

Behold, I am with you, and will keep you, wherever you go, and will bring you again into this land. For I will not leave you until I have done that which I have spoken of to you.” Jacob awakened out of his sleep, and he said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I didn’t know it.”

(Genesis 28:15-16, WEB)

Reflection

Jacob is on the run from Esau, from his past, and from the consequences of the deception that won him the birthright. He lies down on bare ground with a stone for a pillow. Pastor Jack Graham calls this the lowest point in his life.

That is where heaven opens. Jacob sees a stairway between earth and sky, with angels going up and down, and he hears God repeat the covenant promise made to Abraham and Isaac: I am with you, I will watch over you, and I will not leave you. When Jacob wakes, he is overwhelmed and names the place Bethel, the house of God.

As Pastor Jack Graham put it, "God meets us in the most unusual places and the most unusual times, and he's connecting us to himself." Jacob did not go looking for God that night. He says himself that he did not know God was there. Graham says Jacob had been on the run from God, and "he can never outrun God."

This is the heart of the message: "God meets us at the point of our needs." When we come to the end of ourselves, whether through running, failure or fear, we are at a place where God can get our attention.

Graham then turns to the New Testament, where Jesus tells Nathanael that he will see heaven open and angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man (John 1:51). So what was Jacob's ladder? In Graham's words, "Jesus is the link." He is the one connection between heaven and earth, the bridge that brings God to us and lifts us up to know his presence.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.

(John 14:6, WEB)

If you are at a low place today, Graham's word to you is plain: "God is in that place as well." Just as God wasn't finished with Jacob, "He's not done with you yet."

Take it with you

• Where are you running right now, and could God be closer to that place than you realize?
• Jacob said he did not know God was there. Ask God to open your eyes to his presence in an ordinary or painful place today.
• Jesus is the way between you and the Father. What would it look like to come to him instead of running?

Prayer

Lord, thank you for meeting us when we have nothing left to offer. You find us in the places we would never choose, and you do not leave. Forgive us for running from you, and open our eyes to see that you are here. Thank you for Jesus, who connects us to the Father and brings us into your presence. Hold us in our fear and failure, and finish the work you have begun in us. Amen.