December 5

The Place He Did Not Choose

Jacob left home with everything he had schemed for and nothing he could hold on to. He had lied to a blind father and taken a blessing meant for someone else. Esau wanted him dead for it, and his mother sent him north until the anger cooled. He walked until the light gave out.

Nothing marked that ground. It was a spot on the road to Haran, settled on by the hour rather than chosen by the man. He was asleep when God came.

Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. He took one of the stones of the place, put it under his head, and lay down in that place to sleep.

He dreamed. A stairway was set on the earth, and its top reached to heaven. The angels of God were ascending and descending on it. The Lord stood above it and said, "I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac. The land where you lie, I will give to you and to your offspring."

Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I didn't know it."

Genesis 28:10-13, 16

God speaks to a man in Jacob's condition and gives no account of what Jacob has done. He names himself as the God of Abraham and Isaac, hands Jacob the promise he made to them, and adds the land he is lying on to it. That is spoken over a journey God was never consulted about.

Then Jacob wakes and says the truest sentence in the chapter. God had been there all along, while a tired man looked for level ground and a stone. Jacob's ignorance had not kept God away, and his recognition did not summon him either.

The stairway turns up again in John's Gospel, where Jesus tells Nathanael he will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. That is Jacob's dream in Jesus' own mouth, said about himself. The place where heaven touches the earth turns out to be a person, born where there was no room for him and laid in a feeding trough.

You may be reading this somewhere you would not have picked: a rented room, a ward, a town you moved to for work. The God of Jacob keeps no list of ground worthy of him, and he does not wait for us to become worthy either.

Jacob's own part that night was small. He woke, and he said what was true about where he was. That much is within reach today. Say it where you are, out loud if you can: the Lord is in this place. Then take up the day where he already is.

You are in this place, Lord. You came to Jacob on ground he never chose and gave him a promise he had not earned. Meet me here.