The following blog post was written by my husband, Gerald:
As I was brushing my teeth this morning, I reflected on Jacob, son of Isaac, fleeing from his brother, Esau (see Genesis 28:10-22). Wily Jacob, the deceiver, running for his life, hiding in the Luz Wilderness, using a stone for his pillow.
What a pitiful man. Apparently not a whole lot going for him. Seems like a sure loser to me. A failure, maybe even doomed, if Esau catches him.
Enter the grace of God!
The divine power of the Almighty reaches through the dark night sky and delivers a dream to Jacob. A dream that is destined to be immortalized, perhaps like no other, in story, song, art, poetry, music, mythology—even in Holy Scripture. A ladder/stairway placed strategically between the divine realm and tiny planet earth.
When the angels had finished their divine mission up and down the steps of the mystical ladder, a new, specially chosen nation had been birthed in the heart of our wilderness loser. The marvelous grace of it all!
God looked way beyond the limitations of the grandson of the great man of faith, Abraham, and chose Jacob to be the father of a nation that exists in perpetuity in the eyes of heaven.
For that task, Jacob had to leave behind his old identity, which bound him to a life of trickery and evasion. God’s plan for Jacob was to assume a new divine-assigned name: Israel. Here is a pivotal point in history, initiated by a dream in the head of a man resting on a hard, cold rock.
Several thousand years later, the waters of the eastern Mediterranean Sea still lap on the shores of a very significant nation, which carries the name borne on the arid night air of a desert dream.
Great is our God! And amazing is his grace.
Thank you Gerald
for these uplifting words
and images you shared with us.
Blessings to both of you.