The story of Jacob and his brother Esau is a tangled one, filled with deceit, intrigue and animosity. Esau despised his birthright and sold it to Jacob for a pot of stew. Jacob then deceived their father and got him to bless him as the ruler and chief heir of the family. So tensions ran high between the two men. Those problems continued until Jacob eventually had to leave home. Jacob feared for his life, so taking his belongings, he picked up and left his home and went far away to stay with relatives in the east.
Jacob did not seem to have much time for God. We never read of any conversations about God or with Him before he leaves home. We never read about him worshiping, nor any encounters with God in all of his life up until now. Jacob has had little time for God, because he has been too busy scheming and planning how to get ahead. Too much of his time has been wasted thinking only of himself. There was no time for God, and there was no time for anyone else but himself. But God is about to dramatically interrupt his self-centered life.
Jacob has been on the go all day. He is running from his problems. Finally, the night comes and he falls asleep. There is a rock for a pillow under his head, and above his head, the open heavens. As he is asleep, God reveals himself to Jacob. In his dream there is what appears to be a large ladder, or staircase of light, the top of which reaches to heaven and the very throne of God. On it the messengers of God were traveling up and down between heaven and earth. They were delivering people’s petitions to God and bringing God’s help to the people of the earth. Jacob was one of the privileged few who saw with his own eyes the workings of the kingdom of God, the spiritual activity of heaven itself. Here God reveals himself and gives his promise to Jacob that Jacob will be the heir to the promises which God had made to his father, and his father before him. The Lord repeats those promises to him personally saying, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth... All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:13-15).
Jacob calls the place Bethel, which in Hebrew means ‘House of God.’ This special place seems to him to be the very dwelling place of the Lord. Jacob has met God. He wasn’t expecting to meet him. He wasn’t even thinking of God. It was purely grace. It was probably the last thing on his mind. He did not even want to meet God. He was only thinking of getting away from his brother. His mind was full of thoughts about where he was going and what was ahead of him. But God broke into Jacob’s self-absorbed world in an amazing way. God came to Jacob even when Jacob was not seeking God. God opened his world to Jacob, even when Jacob had closed his world to God.
This whole incident tells us something very important about the Lord. Isaiah the prophet quotes God as saying, “I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name, I said, ‘Here am I, here am I’” (Isaiah 65:1). God is full of surprises. Just when you do not expect to meet Him, he comes to you. God can interrupt our self-centered lives in the most amazing ways. Think of the times in the Bible when God came into people’s lives in surprising ways. Moses would say: “The funniest thing happened as I was taking a walk one day. I was walking by a bush that caught fire and God spoke to me out of it.” Moses was not expecting to see God, and he was sure that God was not interested in seeing him, but God had a surprise for Moses. Paul, on the Damascus road, had only hate on his mind when the Lord stopped him in his tracks and changed his life. Gideon was busy with his job, threshing wheat, when the Lord came to him and announced that he was going to use his life in ways that Gideon had never dreamed of. The list of Bible characters could go on and on, but there is enough evidence to show us that God sometimes interrupts the ordinary in our lives to come to us in extraordinary ways. And he is still doing it today.
A young man in one of the towns where I served was driving to work one day and encountered God unexpectedly. He was far away from God; he had lived in the pleasures of the world. He had nearly ruined his life with drugs and alcohol. He never came to church, and God had been the last thing on his mind, but one day on his way to work God put his ladder down and stepped into his car. There was no vision, but he felt the Lord moving in his heart in an unmistakable way and pulled his car off to the side of the road, bowed his head and gave his life to Christ. His world was dramatically different from that moment on. He began to work with the youth in the community, telling them the miracle that had taken place in his life, and helping them to see what could happen to them.
Most of us cannot say that we have seen the sky open, nor have we passed by any flaming bushes. We have not had blinding experiences like Paul on the road to Damascus. But there are still those times when God comes unexpectedly into our lives. It may be in our sleep. It may be when we are least thinking about it. It may be in church, or even some place where we should not be. It may come when we need him the most, or when we feel we do not need him at all. It may be in a time of crisis and depression, or it may be in a time of great blessing and joy. But God is the God of the unexpected. He can come knocking on your door when you least expect it. He may even come when you least want to hear from Him. It may be a time when you feel him near, but you are afraid to hear what he is wanting to say. You might not want to hear what he is asking you to do. You are afraid to let go and let something happen to you.
The story is told of an agnostic who fell off a cliff, but as he was falling he reached out and grabbed a root. He was barely able to hang on and felt himself slipping. In a fit of desperation he screamed, “God, if you are up there, help me.” In a flash the voice of God came back and said, “Son, do you believe in me?” “Yes,” cried the agnostic, “I believe in you! What do you want me to do?” The voice of God came back strong and clear: “I want you to trust me and let go of the root.” There was a long pause before the agnostic was eventually heard to say, “Is there anybody else up there?” There are a lot of people who want to know if God is up there until he tells them something they do not want to hear. They do not want to let go and let God.
God does not work the same with every person; you never know when he is going to come to you. But don’t ever say it will never happen, because it can and will. God is as interested in you as he was in Jacob. And he can meet you in a way that you cannot imagine. He can surprise you in some of the most unusual places. Sometimes it is in a small way, sometimes in a big way... you never know. It can be while you are looking at a baby’s fingerprint. It can be while you are watching a night sky. It can be when you are shopping in the store or reading the paper. It may be in your sleep, or when you are driving your car. He is trying to get your attention, and he may use anything to get it. It may not be until you give your life to him that you will understand some of the ways which he was speaking to you and breaking into your world.
I know that it was not until after I allowed God to come into my life that I began to understand some of the ways that he was trying to reach me. I began to understand the times he had been watching over me, and the times he was trying to speak to me. Most of the time people do not realize that God is interested enough to bother with them. They feel either too guilty or too unimportant for God to be concerned with. But I want you to hear this if you hear nothing else today: God is interested in you, he is looking for you. He is looking for a way he can come into your life. He made you with his own hands. He longs for you and he is looking for a way for the two of you to meet. There is so much he wants to do for you if you will only let him in.
Notice that Jacob did not try to climb the ladder that he saw. He knew that he could not climb up to God, he had to let God come to Him. It wasn’t Jacob that was trying to find God, God was trying to find him. The Bible says, “There is no one who understands, no one who seeks God” (Romans 3:11). It is always God who takes the initiative. It is not we who find God, but he who finds us. God came to Jacob that night and opened the door to heaven. Jesus said: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). He is the God who looks for you and knocks at your heart’s door.
How can you find God? By letting him find you. Just stop running! When you come to your personal Bethel and he puts his ladder down next to you, listen to what he is saying, and do what he tells you. The song says: “We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.” But the truth is, you cannot climb that ladder. You cannot earn or work your way to God. You cannot do it by yourself. You must let him come to you. The Bible says, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down)... The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart” (Romans 10:6,8). Just say the words of that chorus: “Come into my heart, come into my heart, come into my heart Lord Jesus.”
Jesus identified himself with Jacob’s experience at Bethel. He said to Nathanael, “I tell you the truth, you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). He is the door to heaven—the house of God. He said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). The only way that we can get to God is by going through Christ. He is looking for us. He brings the stairway of God to us. It is beside you right now. It does not matter that no one loves you, he does. It does not matter that you feel unimportant. He says that you were important enough to die for. It does not matter if you have sinned, he died to forgive you and take your guilt away.
It may be that you are running like Jacob. You may be running from family, from problems, or from God. It may be that your life is in an upheaval. There may be broken relationships as there were with Jacob. It may be that you are heading into an uncertain future. God can come to you in any of these circumstances. You never know when he is going to appear. Any day could contain a most unusual visit from God. One theologian has described it as a “Leash of Longing.” What he means by that is that God has attached to each of our hearts a leash of longing, and every once in awhile he tugs at that leash and awakens the longing for him that he has placed in our hearts. It is the device that he uses to bring us to Him.
You can never really get away from Him. The Psalmist said: “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, ‘Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you” (Psalm 139:7-12). When God is longing for you and looking for you there is no way to hide from Him. You may try to ignore Him, but there is a better way. Like Jacob, you need to wake up and realize that God has been talking to you, and build an altar in your heart where he will be worshiped, a place where he can live. Make your heart the house of God.
Later on Jacob would wander away from Bethel the place where he first met God, as wonderful as that experience was, but God would again call him back. Perhaps today there are people here whom God is calling back to Bethel — the place where they first met God. Maybe you have gotten off track. You know that you have met God, but it was a few miles back, and you have wandered from that first experience and you need to renew it. God is calling you back to live near the place where you first met Him.
Whether you have never been to Bethel, or you have been there and moved away, the ladder is there; God is opening the door of heaven for you so that you can enter in. There extends a stairway from the heart of God to your heart right now. Wake up and say with Jacob: “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it... How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16,17). Christ is the door and he is beside you right now. He wants to come in.
In his book The Spiritual Life of Children, the famous Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles, tells the story of Alice, a ten-year-old girl who came from a family that did not believe in God. She expressed her doubts to him with these words: “I remember... I saw the people next door coming home from church, and I looked out the window after they’d left and I tried to ask God if they were right and we were wrong, because we never go. But how can you talk with God? I said, ‘All right, God, please, I’m young, and I’d like to know, so give us a signal, me and my mommy and daddy.’ I knew he wouldn’t — and he didn’t.” But then she says, “Later, when I went to the park, I thought there might not be a God, but somehow we have this park and the flowers are out, and how did all of this begin, that’s what I’d like to know!” God met her in the park with miracles all around her. It was when and where she least expected him. Don’t miss the signs! He is there and he is longing for you.
Rodney J. Buchanan
January 15, 2012
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
