Scott's Thoughts

Jacob's walk of faith

Genesis 28 tells the account of Jacob's journey to Haran. If Jacob was the type of man given to reflection, his trek eastward to the country of his mother Rebekah's family, being several hundred miles long, would have offered more than enough time for some soul-searching.

Did he reflect on the purpose of his journey? Although he was sent out with his father Isaac's blessing, and with his charge to find a wife from Rebekah's family there, Jacob knew that his journey was a forced exit from his family and the beginning of an indefinite time of exile. Before Isaac sent him away with a blessing, Rebekah sent him off with a warning: Jacob's brother Esau was set on killing him.

So Jacob was fleeing for his life. And he only had himself to thank. Esau's rage was inflamed when Jacob so deceitfully took the blessing of Isaac away from him. Jacob was foolish, for the blessing was his in the first place. Had he, and his mother Rebekah, only trusted in the Lord instead of in their cunning, Jacob would have both inherited the blessing (despite Isaac's plan to give it to Esau; Jacob was God's choice, not Isaac's) and lived at peace at home. But apparently Jacob was faith-challenged; he relied on his own wisdom to acquire what God had already declared was his will to give him. Surely Rebekah had told him more than once the words God had spoke to her while he and his twin brother were still in the womb: "the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger" (25:23)

But because of his faithlessness and ungodly ways, Jacob was now a fugitive from his own family. Yes, he had in Isaac's blessing the promise that he would multiply, and that he and his offspring would inherit the land of promise. But what good were those promises, when he was now outside the land, and had no wife or children at the time?

And now, after who knows how many days of travel, Jacob finds himself in a "certain place" - who knows where? He looks for something for a pillow, and the best he can do is a rock. Some great thing this is, being the heir of God's promises to Abraham - sleeping on a rock in the middle of nowhere, escaping from a brother determined to kill him!

But then Jacob sees the vision in his dream: the stairway and the angels going up and down it. And the Lord himself stands next to him and speaks to him the glorious promises: that he is with Jacob and will keep him wheverever he goes, and that he will not leave him until he fulfills his word for him.

When Jacob wakes up, the first thing he says is, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it" (28:16). Now nothing is the same for Jacob. He's in the same place, to be sure, but it's no longer just a "certain place", but it is "Bethel", the house of God. The rock is no longer a head rest for Jacob, but he makes it into a memorial stone for God Almighty who appeared to him.

What was more real for Jacob then? What he saw in his dream, or what he saw when he woke up? The lonely wilderness, or the heavenly stairway and the awesome presence of the Lord? By faith, Jacob obtained "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." The vision of his dream became a greater reality for him than the reality he woke up to.

Faith in God and in his Word is like that. By faith we know that God's promises are a greater reality than the reality we see with our eyes each day. By faith we know that this world is under the rule of Christ, though it seems at times to be at the mercy of the forces of evil and wickedness. By faith we know that death is not our end, but a better life - a far better life! - awaits us on the other side of the resurrection.

Christ came into the world. His Spirit dwells in his people. God is truly in this place. But, do we know it?