Genesis 28:20-22 20Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the LORD will be my God 22and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
I just love reading the Old Testament. There is so much room in the text for your imagination to go a little crazy! Take this text for example; Genesis 28:10 10Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. This is actually the place his ancestors came from in Chapter 11 verse 31. On the way back to the area where his relatives lived, he stopped to sleep over night. Now, his father told him to go back to Haran to take a wife from his relatives living there. On his stop overnight he makes his bed with a rock for a pillow! I don’t know how he did not have a nightmare, but instead he had a dream with angels! This is where Jacob had the epiphany that changed his life!
The angels were going up and down on a ladder to Heaven. The Lord was at the top of the ladder. So many artists have tried to capture what that might have looked like-no one can do it justice!
We of course, imagine a ladder we are familiar with today. The angels would be maybe the ones we see in Christmas pageants or on cards, cherub type face s with wings. Let’s think a little differently for a minute.
First let’s look at Jacob. This is Jacob, a twin, a farmer, an opportunist, a Mamma’s boy! Remember he had cheated his twin brother out of his birthright for a bowl of soup. Then he cheated him out of his blessing! His own flesh and blood, Jacob was a man that had himself listed first. As a result, he is on the run from his brother. His Mom is in his corner and is guiding him along, while his father is on his death bed. Jacob even tricked his father into giving Jacob the blessing and inheritance meant for Esau!
So here we find him on the run, resting on a rock in the desert, and this vision comes to him in a dream, he knows it is God. Genesis 28:12-16 12He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13There above it stood the LORD, and he said: “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. 14Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15I 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.” 16When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”.
Up to this point Jacob had been the spoiled kid of privilege. Now, on the run and alone, he encounters God! We all need that type of an encounter for ourselves. Often it comes when we are much younger that Jacob, but it must come to us as individuals and we must have a recollection of it. Jacob did an unusual thing to remember his encounter with God-he set up a stone pillar and anointed it with oil. He renamed the place ‘Bethel’, which literally means ‘the house of God.’ Jacob had a heart change at this place. Alone, with a rock for a pillow, no family or friend to turn to-but God! He makes his promise to God, and God makes promises to him. The promises God makes to him are the deeds to the land the Israelite’s were given by God, and have fought to regain for all these years since then. Truly the tribes of Jacob are still fighting the tribes of Esau for the Jewish birthright!
Jacob goes on to be the father of the 12 tribes of Israel. He continues to be the patriarch of the Jewish people. This encounter with God changed the entire trajectory of his life. Now he would be on God’s team and follow his commands.
Have you ever had this type of an encounter with God? I have. I was just living life as it came along to me. Suddenly, there was an attention getting detour in my peaceful path. Now, I had to really examine what was going on here. When the realization come to me; ‘surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it’. My whole world changed. Now I have turned over the list with me as #1, and you placed God there. With Him at the top everything has become an adventure! Ask yourself, ‘am I a before the dream Jacob, or after the dream Jacob? I, for one promise God, He is #1!
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