Jacob was on the run! A trickster, deceiver, and conniver, who had taken both his brother’s birthright and blessing! Now he was fleeing for his life from brother Esau’s angry death threats. I love how God guides even in our wanderings and I love how Jacob came to a certain place on his run! An “End Of The Rope” kind of place. A lonely place! A place where God met Him just simply because He wanted to. He had a plan for Jacob’s lineage and He needed Jacob to give himself up and over to a sovereign God who could lead him in the way which God had for him! I loved Jacob’s ladder connecting him to God and heaven but a very interesting thought for me in this story was Jacob’s pillow that night ~ that of a stone! I wonder, have you been there? At the end of your rope? That lonely “End Of The Road” kind of place, where your pillow seemed like stone and endless nights of guilt racked at your conscience and left you sleepless? There is no comfort there! No sense of peace! It’s a cold, calloused place of hardened hearts and deep, rooted pride and oh it’s so lonely! But praise the Lord, it’s a ‘grace’ place, a place where God meets us in our vulnerable state to get our attention! To make us listen! He got Jacob’s attention! He gave him a ladder in his dream that connected him to God and heaven! When your pillow is a stone ask God for His ladder to connect you to heav
Genesis 28:10 -19
Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring, and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place– and I did not know it!” And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”
Hope and Healing In Hard Places 