Often, we live lives that are fraught with shame, betrayal, and loss. Why? Many times, this is the fruit we glean from trying to control the outcome of our lives on our own. The beauty of this is that in our shame and betrayal and loss, we meet brokenness. Sweet brokenness, the place where our living God can give us a renewed perspective. The place where he takes us above our circumstances and above our troubles and above our pain, to His perspective on what he has for us. Jacob’s dream is a reflection where God did just this. This story tells of a man who tried himself to control his own destiny and succeeded only in bringing himself to a place where he was materially bankrupt, spiritually bankrupt, and socially outcast… broken. It is in the brokenness that God puts him in the tree high on the mountain and gives him the vision of an old man looking back on his life. We all need the new perspective that only can come from the Father above. His perspective lends the strength and desire to move forward. The perspective that draws us close to the most high God to see his grace for our lives. An encounter of this type changes our motivation. We move away from the mindset of making Him part of our story, and into the mindset of being part of His story. Listen with us to the story of Jacob and how God used a dream to give him a God sized perspective that would change his life forever.
Genesis 28:10-20 (NLT)
10 Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba and traveled toward Haran. 11 At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep. 12 As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway.
13 At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. 14 Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. 15 What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you.”
John 1:51 (NLT)
51 Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.”
