Slices
Prepare
Have you ever felt, ‘I have messed up so much. I’m absolutely useless. God will not want anything to do with me now!’? (Maybe that is where you are right now!) Did God agree with you?
Bible passage
Jacob’s dream at Bethel
10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He 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. 13 There 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. 14 Your 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. 15 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.’
16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.’ 17 He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’
18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
20 Then 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 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord will be my God 22 and 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.’
Explore
Jacob has really messed up – he has fallen out with his family and is running away in fear for his life. Yet in this position God has appeared to Jacob, reminding him of what he already knows and making amazing promises (v 15). Jacob might have felt very alone, having forfeited his relationships with all his close family members, and now spending the night in the middle of nowhere. But God has not given up on him and knows exactly where he is!
God reaffirms his covenant with Jacob and his family by repeating the promises that he made to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham, and his father Isaac. He adds a new promise – I will be with you and ‘will bring you back to this land’ (v 15).
How often I long to hear and see God as clearly as this! Yet Jacob’s reaction was to be afraid, to worship and to rededicate himself to God. (Notice, though, that the rededication is conditional (vs 20,21) – ‘If you keep your promises, God, then I’ll worship you…’ Jacob still wants God on his own terms!)
Respond
What has God promised you? How do you react to those promises – fear, worship, commitment, forgetfulness, dedication, gratitude? Write out one of God’s promises and stick it up somewhere prominent to help you be more mindful of it.
Deeper Bible study
‘No matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ.’1 Recall some of God’s promises, giving thanks that through Christ they become our reality.
God often meets us in our extreme places. Jacob cuts a lonely figure in a remote wilderness. Having left the security and comfort of home, particularly his mother’s devoted love, he now suffers the major discomfort of choosing a stone for a pillow. He’s on a journey to an extended family he has not met, on a mission to find a wife (vs 1,2). The one thing he can hold on to is his father’s parting gift: a prayer of blessing and a reminder of his heritage as an heir of the covenant promises of God (vs 3,4). Sometimes our sole consolation is the bare word of promise: ‘I have called you by name, you are mine’.2
Jacob’s isolation brings a rich experience of God. I never quite know what to make of the Celtic idea of ‘thin places’, supposedly places where the boundary between heaven and earth is especially thin. Certainly, this secluded site becomes a place of revelation. The presence of God is revealed to Jacob and he names it ‘the house of God’ (Bethel), erecting a memorial pillar to mark it. Is it the location or the person who is ‘thin’? God graciously meets Jacob in his desperate need and speaks a transforming word, just as he blesses the poor in spirit and those who mourn.3 It is the word rather than the experience that will sustain him. God grabs his attention so that he will listen to the renewal of the covenant promise (vs 13–15). In our own lives, too, it often takes upheaval for us to hear God. Our troubles can be the occasion for a voice that transcends the ‘tumult of our life’s wild, restless sea’.4 It comes to remind us of God’s universal purpose (v 14), his commitment to his promise (v 15) and our part in it all.
Jacob’s response to God’s promise produces his own far-reaching promise, including a commitment to generosity. What practical response will we make to the precious promises of God?
1 2 Cor 1:20 2 Isa 43:1, NRSV 3 Matt 5:3,4 4 Cecil Frances Alexander, 1818–95, ‘Jesus calls us; o’er the tumult’
Bible in a year
Read the Bible in a year: Job 3,4; Luke 14
Pray for Scripture Union
Project OneLife will see mission through sport made a key priority for the churches in Gloucestershire and is gaining momentum as it reaches a crucial stage. Pray for wisdom as Local Mission Partner PSALMS seeks God’s guidance in understanding their future role in this.
