Missions Paul

Leah was watching. She had spent years watching her sister Rachel and watching who Jacob would gaze upon, and she was always second. Her life could be summed up as ‘loved less and seen less’.

“When Leah saw that she had stopped having children, she took her servant Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife. ¹⁰ Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a son. ¹¹ Then Leah said, “What good fortune!”So she named him Gad.¹² Leah’s servant Zilpah bore Jacob a second son. ¹³ Then Leah said, “How happy I am! The women will call me happy.” So she named him Asher.” (Genesis 30 v 9-13)

Rachel is still scoring more points with Jacob in her eyes, and so she gives Jacob her servant Zilpah. It really does seem an exhausting competition.

But slow down, something has changed. Leah seems to have changed. She chooses names with thoughts of fortune and happiness in mind.

The weeping unloved woman of many years, who on her wedding night was humiliated, who chose names for her first 2 children to show her misery of not being loved, has changed. The landscape has changed.

Her circumstances haven’t changed; she is still number two in the love table. Her life is still painfully complicated, but she seems not to be focusing on what she lacks. Her first four sons’ names all focused on what she didn’t have. Things are different now. The difference is her perspective on life. She is no longer looking to Jacob for her well-being. Do you see the difference? “The women will call me happy.” Her focus has changed. She has stopped looking to the same people for approval.

Joy doesn’t always arrive when circumstances change. Sometimes it arrives when we change, when we begin to notice what God is doing in the margins of our story, in the places we didn’t expect, through people and gifts we didn’t plan for.

The women would call Leah happy. And perhaps, for the first time in a long time, she was beginning to believe it herself.

We turn now to Rachel, Jacob’s second wife, but the first in his heart. She was struggling to conceive, and what follows is a familiar pattern among the people of God: when waiting becomes unbearable, the temptation is to act.

“When Rachel saw that she was not bearing Jacob any children, she became jealous of her sister. So she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I’ll die!’ Jacob became angry with her and said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who has kept you from having children?’ Then she said, ‘Here is Bilhah, my servant. Sleep with her so that she can bear children for me and I too can build a family through her.’ So she gave him her servant Bilhah as a wife. Jacob slept with her, and she became pregnant and bore him a son. Then Rachel said, ‘God has vindicated me; he has listened to my plea and given me a son.’ Because of this she named him Dan.” (Genesis 30:1-6)

Is someone close to you experiencing something you desperately want for yourself? It’s not a pleasant feeling. The gap between what we have and what we long for can feel unbearable when someone else seems to have it so easily.

Rachel hadn’t learned from history. Abraham and Sarah had done the same thing with Hagar, and it hadn’t ended well. Once again, a human solution to a divine timing problem created more pain than it resolved. When the waiting becomes too much, the instinct is always to engineer something, to fill the silence with action. Rachel does exactly that.

What’s striking, though, is what happens at the moment of blessing. Rather than congratulating herself on her clever scheme, Rachel looks up. “God has vindicated me,” she says, the language of a courtroom, of a judge ruling in someone’s favour. It implies she felt she was in a dispute, perhaps with Leah, perhaps even with Jacob, who had suggested the problem lay with God himself. However tangled her methods, her instinct in that moment is to credit grace rather than cleverness. Perhaps that tells us something: even our most impatient reaching can somehow land in God’s hands.

But then a second son is born, and something has shifted.

“Rachel’s servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son. Then Rachel said, ‘I have had a great struggle with my sister, and I have won.’ So she named him Naphtali.” (Genesis 30:7-8)

The language has changed entirely. Where the birth of Dan prompted gratitude to God, the birth of Naphtali prompts something far more earthly, the satisfaction of settling a score. Along the way, Rachel’s longing for a child has quietly curdled into a longing for victory over her sister.

This is how comparison tends to work in us. It rarely stays still. Rachel began in genuine anguish, a woman who simply wanted a child. But somewhere between Dan and Naphtali, that grief reshaped itself into competition. She stopped asking, “Give me this good thing,” and started asking, “Let me have more than her.”

There’s also something poignant about the nature of rivalry here. Rachel declares she has won, but Leah is still there. The marriage is still complicated. The household is still fractured. Winning a round in a rivalry rarely ends it; it usually just raises the stakes for the next one.

The Bible doesn’t tell us Rachel was wrong to feel this way. It simply records her words with quiet honesty and lets the reader sit with the unease because most of us recognise it. The moment we begin to frame someone else’s life as a competition we’ve entered, we’ve already lost something more important than whatever we’re fighting for.

Two sons have been born. And Rachel, for all her gains, still sounds like someone who is losing.

“She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah.Then she stopped having children.” (Genesis 29 v 35)

This time I will praise the Lord. This time, I will put down my problem.

It was as if the Lord was saying, “Well, I love you, will I do?”

Leah came to terms with her life. She stopped embracing the problem. God was pleased, and He chose Judah for special favour.

Psalm 78: 67-68 “he rejected the tents of Joseph, he did not choose the tribe of Ephraim; but he chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion, which he loved.”

Psalm 114: 2 Judah became God’s sanctuary,

Judah had the special presence of God.

Leah chose to praise God rather than tell everyone how tough things were for her.

The result was that God came and placed His favour on her son.

The same favour, blessings and presence of God on Judah is available to us as we, even in difficulties, offer praise to God. God dwells in the people of praise.

The name in Hebrew is Yadah, and it means ‘God/Yahweh be praised.’

Alongside ‘to praise’, it also means ‘to revere or worship with extended hands’ or ‘to give thanks’.

Judah is the key to changing your environment. Judah is what attracts the presence of God to us. Judah is the pathway on which God will lead us through even immense difficulty. It would be very hard to be defeated, afraid, silent, grumbling or worse with a name like Judah!

Remember the Passover meal of Jesus, the last supper with his disciples before the cross? He and his disciples sang a hymn. It was called the Hallel, it was the whole of the Psalms 113-118, praise to God for his salvation from Egypt, and He being the eternal Saviour. So, hours before Jesus’ most dreadful and terrifying moment, the crucifixion and death, he sings!

The blessing of praise is this: “Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies” Genesis 49:8

“May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands, to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, to carry out the sentence written against them— this is the glory of all his faithful people.” Psalm 149:6-8

Every time we praise, we are declaring to the spiritual powers that our hands are on the neck of an already defeated enemy. That is because of Jesus’ victory on the cross, where Satan was stripped of power and authority over us. Then I will praise my God and squeeze some more victory out of you that is rightfully mine.

There is a father of lies who is against you, trying to steal, kill and destroy you, and JUDAH is your greatest defence.

Those who don’t understand JUDAH are in fear of what the enemy can do as a “roaring lion prowling around looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). But there is another LION, a far greater LION and people who JUDAH live in trust of the LION of the TRIBE OF JUDAH! (Revelation 5:8).

The Lion of the tribe of Praise has defeated and won every battle. We are called to press in, clear up, and take back what belongs to us.

Leah’s story isn’t finished, and eventually we will return to her.

Leah’s first response to God’s blessing reveals her deepest pain. The Lord has seen her misery – she acknowledges God’s awareness. But her hope is still fixed on changing Jacob’s heart. “Surely my husband will love me now.”

Perhaps you are reading this today and hoping for something to change. You have been praying for such a long time. Like Leah, you may have come up with a plan, and while you wait, you are thinking, “Surely …”

Leah’s lesson to us all is that God will wait until you have exhausted your plans and begin to praise Him through the difficulty you are facing.

^“Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben,for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.” ³³ She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son, she said, “Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too.” So she named him Simeon. ³⁴ Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son, she said, “Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” So he was named Levi. ³⁵ She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son, she said, “This time I will praise the Lord.” So she named him Judah.Then she stopped having children.” (Genesis 29 v 32-35)

Reuben (it means see, a son): Leah now knows God has seen her misery; surely she will be loved by Jacob. The problem is still her focus. The gift from God becomes a means to an end – a tool to win the affection she craves.

Simeon (it means the one who hears): Leah is still naming her pain. “I am not loved.” God hears. God responds. But notice – she’s still defining herself by what she lacks, by who doesn’t love her. Her identity is still wrapped up in her problem rather than in God’s provision.

Levi (maybe from the word attached):  Three sons. Surely this is enough? “Now at last” – there’s desperation in these words. How many blessings does it take before Jacob notices? Before he loved her? She’s still measuring God’s gifts by whether they change her circumstances with Jacob.

Judah (derived from the word praise): Everything changes with the fourth son. “This time I will praise the Lord.” Not “surely my husband will love me now.” Not “because I am not loved.” Not “now at last he will become attached to me.” This time – just praise. Pure praise to God. Leah finally moved from problem to praise. She stopped looking at what Jacob wasn’t giving her and started looking at what God was giving her.

Notice what happens: “Then she stopped having children.” When Leah’s focus shifted from her problem to praise, something changed. God had accomplished what He intended – not to change Jacob’s heart necessarily, but to change Leah’s heart.

From Judah – the son named “praise” – would come the line of kings. From Judah would come King David. From Judah would come Jesus Christ, the Messiah.

When you move to praise, God changes you. And when you change, the problem can change.

Are you still at Reuben, Simeon, or Levi? Or have you arrived at Judah – where praise is on your lips regardless of whether your circumstances have changed?

Every generation needs a new song. Every situation needs a new song.

It is not the song itself, but it is the heart behind the singer. Praise stems from the heart.

Whatever the situation – “May the praise of God be in our mouths.” Psalm 149:6.

When the sun rises, creation sings. But David says it the other way round.

Psalm 57: 7-8 “I will sing and make music. I will awaken the dawn.”

God always does something in you before He does something outside of you. The internal is more important than the external.

The new song is the song that is sung before dawn, in the night, where there is darkness, fear, terror, loneliness, isolation, God says sing!

A couple of weeks ago, in the far north of Kenya, a group of us witnessed a church with no building, which gathered under a tree, that had little food and water, only one set of clothes that they were wearing, no prospects for change and yet … they joyfully sang, they enthusiastically danced and they clapped their hands with praise to God. They are ready for God to move upon them. Not because they have plans for a borehole and for the ability to plant crops to feed their children, but because praise is on their lips to their God who is for them.

The story we have been reading about Jacob’s first wife, Leah, reminds us that the sooner we can turn our problems into praise, the better it will be for us.

 ^“When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. ³² Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben,for she said, “It is because the Lord has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now.” (Genesis 29 v 31-32)

How easy to move from the problem to the plan. The plan is always to get out of the problem or to change the situation to make things better. But God’s prescription is different. God’s prescription is to move from the problem to praise when He can then come and change you and then the situation. Leah would eventually realise this over the next few years.

How do Christians in our world live under incredible problems? They have learnt the key to praising God, and God inhabits them, changing their attitude toward their problems.

What needs changing is not your problem, but you, and when we are changed, the problem can be changed.

“When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless.” (Genesis 29:31-32)

God opened her womb, and she started having children. Her plan was that if she could have children, Jacob might love her. That’s what was wrong.

You may be an unloved woman – God knows that. He will do things in and through you that the most loved woman cannot do. Many are just women of men, but God will turn you into a woman of God.

Our plans can seem so godly, so close to what God wants, but close is not good enough; it needs to be God’s will.

But Leah’s plan was running too far ahead of God. She thought this would lead to Jacob loving her; she had not yet let go of her problem, and it was still important to her.

God sees you in your misery. God responds to your pain. But the question is: will you move from problem to plan, or from problem to praise?

When you move to praise, God changes you. And when you change, the problem can change.

Leah lived in the shadow of her younger sister, Rachel. She was the first wife of Jacob by default, unloved by him; she had been rejected by other men, presumably and perhaps even worse of all, used by her own father.

If you have ever felt like a second choice, then this story is for you.

“After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, ¹⁵ Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.” ¹⁶ Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. ¹⁷ Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. ¹⁸ Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.” ¹⁹ Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” ²⁰ So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. ²¹ Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.” ²² So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. ²³ But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. ²⁴ And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant. ²⁵ When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?” ²⁶ Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. ²⁷ Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.” ²⁸ And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. ²⁹ Laban gave his servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her attendant. ³⁰ Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.” (Genesis 29 v 14-30)

Leah was humiliated.

On their wedding night, in a darkened tent, the deception unfolded. “When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, ‘What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?'” (v23, 25).

Can you imagine the shock Jacob had in the morning—he had slept with the wrong bride! But think of how Leah felt. The morning light revealed not just her identity but her husband’s horror and disappointment. There are things from the past that humiliated you, and perhaps you still feel the hurt. Jesus is the healer of hurts.

Leah was used.

“Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.’ And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife” (verses 27-28).

Leah became a transaction, a means to an end. Women in our society have also lost their independent personality and have become objects of desire or disgust, used and cheapened.

Leah’s story isn’t over. Yet it already speaks to everyone who has felt like a second choice, or who has looked in the mirror and felt inadequate, or who has experienced the crushing weight of being unwanted.

But here’s what we must remember: God sees the Leahs of this world.

He sees those who feel ordinary, overlooked, and unloved.

Your worth is not determined by who chooses you, but by the One who created you and calls you His own.

He is the healer of hurts, the redeemer of rejection, and the One who sees you exactly as you are and loves you completely.

You are not defined by who rejected you. You are defined by the God who chose you first.

Here’s a summary of what is coming up in the next chapter of Jacob’s life, before we begin reading the first part of it. Apt that it is Valentine’s Day today.

Jacob fell in love with Rachel, the younger and more beautiful daughter of his uncle Laban. To marry her, Jacob agreed to work for Laban for seven years. However, on the wedding night, Laban deceived Jacob by substituting Leah, the older daughter, for Rachel. When Jacob discovered the switch the next morning and complained, Laban offered him, Rachel as well, but only after completing the wedding week with Leah and agreeing to work another seven years. Jacob accepted because of his love for Rachel. This created tension between the two sisters, as Leah bore Jacob many children while Rachel initially remained childless, despite being Jacob’s favourite wife.

Living in someone else’s shadow is exhausting. If you constantly compare yourself to others, it can destroy the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to truly live. Leah listened and watched her sister. Every compliment she heard, and every loving look she saw coming from Jacob to Rachel, was a reminder of what she lacked. Her heart was constantly wounded.

Here’s the passage:

“After Jacob had stayed with him for a whole month, ¹⁵ Laban said to him, “Just because you are a relative of mine, should you work for me for nothing? Tell me what your wages should be.” ¹⁶ Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel. ¹⁷ Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful. ¹⁸ Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, “I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.” ¹⁹ Laban said, “It’s better that I give her to you than to some other man. Stay here with me.” ²⁰ So Jacob served seven years to get Rachel, but they seemed like only a few days to him because of his love for her. ²¹ Then Jacob said to Laban, “Give me my wife. My time is completed, and I want to make love to her.” ²² So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. ²³ But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her. ²⁴ And Laban gave his servant Zilpah to his daughter as her attendant. ²⁵ When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “What is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I? Why have you deceived me?” ²⁶ Laban replied, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one. ²⁷ Finish this daughter’s bridal week; then we will give you the younger one also, in return for another seven years of work.” ²⁸ And Jacob did so. He finished the week with Leah, and then Laban gave him his daughter Rachel to be his wife. ²⁹ Laban gave his servant Bilhah to his daughter Rachel as her attendant. ³⁰ Jacob made love to Rachel also, and his love for Rachel was greater than his love for Leah. And he worked for Laban another seven years.” (Genesis 29 v 14-30)

Leah was Jacob’s first wife, but she wasn’t his first choice. He had been deceived by her father. Jacob was in love with her younger sister Rachel.

Genesis 29:17 tells us, “Leah had weak eyes, but Rachel had a lovely figure and was beautiful.” Rachel was more beautiful; every man wanted Rachel. Leah was in the background, ordinary. Added to the problem was that Leah was older. If she had been younger, she might have grown into a beautiful woman. But she’s older, Rachel is more beautiful, and Rachel has more years on her. Sometimes our problems are magnified by our age—time is running out to see that desire or dream fulfilled.

Then there was the weight of comparison.

She had weak eyes. Maybe you look in the mirror and do not like what you see, and you wish something were different about you. You may feel cheated in life because of the way you look, the way you talk, your natural gifts, and your limitations. Leah understood this burden intimately. Every day she lived in the shadow of her sister’s beauty, reminded of what she was not.

She was unloved by Jacob. Verse 18 makes this painfully clear: “Jacob was in love with Rachel and said, ‘I’ll work for you seven years in return for your younger daughter Rachel.'” But the rejection went deeper than just Jacob. She was unloved by other men, Laban himself admitted in verse 26, “It is not our custom here to give the younger daughter in marriage before the older one.” Laban had tried to marry her off for years with no success.

She was even unloved by her father. “So Laban brought together all the people of the place and gave a feast. But when evening came, he took his daughter Leah and brought her to Jacob, and Jacob made love to her” (verses 22-23). What father would do this? In her day, Leah had to obey, and maybe she thought Jacob would learn to love her. Many women and men feel unloved today. The good news is that God cares about the rejected, and He loves you.

Do you know the feelings of Leah?

Leah would need to know that her value was not determined by how she measured up against her sister. Maybe there is someone reading this today who feels unloved, less than ordinary, in pain, feeling overlooked, second best. Please, hold on, the story of Leah isn’t over, and it isn’t over for you either. These stories in the Bible reveal a God who specialises in lifting the rejected and the overlooked. He hasn’t finished with you yet.

From Bethel (the gate of heaven experience) and the understanding that God was with him, Jacob continues on his pilgrimage to find a wife from his own kind. The confidence that Jacob must have had knowing who was behind him (not Esau, his brother chasing him, though he was, but God who had commissioned him) and knowing who was above him (the movement of the angels ascending and descending on heaven’s stairway), this gave him a state of readiness. He was ready to find his family. He was ready to find his wife. He was ready for extraordinary feats of strength, of which we will read now.

“Then Jacob continued on his journey and came to the land of the eastern peoples. ² There he saw a well in the open country, with three flocks of sheep lying near it because the flocks were watered from that well. The stone over the mouth of the well was large. ³ When all the flocks were gathered there, the shepherds would roll the stone away from the well’s mouth and water the sheep. Then they would return the stone to its place over the mouth of the well. ⁴ Jacob asked the shepherds, “My brothers, where are you from?” “We’re from Harran,” they replied. ⁵ He said to them, “Do you know Laban, Nahor’s grandson?” “Yes, we know him,” they answered. ⁶ Then Jacob asked them, “Is he well?” “Yes, he is,” they said, “and here comes his daughter Rachel with the sheep.” ⁷ “Look,” he said, “the sun is still high; it is not time for the flocks to be gathered. Water the sheep and take them back to pasture.” ⁸ “We can’t,” they replied, “until all the flocks are gathered and the stone has been rolled away from the mouth of the well. Then we will water the sheep.” ⁹ While he was still talking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherd. ¹⁰ When Jacob saw Rachel daughter of his uncle Laban, and Laban’s sheep, he went over and rolled the stone away from the mouth of the well and watered his uncle’s sheep. ¹¹ Then Jacob kissed Rachel and began to weep aloud. ¹² He had told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and a son of Rebekah. So she ran and told her father. ¹³ As soon as Laban heard the news about Jacob, his sister’s son, he hurried to meet him. He embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his home, and there Jacob told him all these things. ¹⁴ Then Laban said to him, “You are my own flesh and blood.” (Genesis 29 v 1-14)

If you like a love-at-first-sight story, then here it is.

Can you picture it? Jacob arrives at a sealed well and sees the flocks and the shepherds gathering. They wait till there is at least enough of them to collectively lift the stone away from the well. Jacob, upon learning that the shepherds are from his family town of Harran, asks about Laban, his uncle. It seems perfect timing because at the same time, Laban’s daughter and Jacob’s cousin, Rachel, arrives with Laban’s sheep. In v10, we have a wonderful few words, ‘When Jacob saw Rachel …’

That was it.

The one who was known in his family as a deceiver steps forward into the public gaze and, with extraordinary strength, rolls the stone away so that Rachel can water the flock.

Tears flow as he kisses Rachel. It seems a bit strange, doesn’t it? I presume this was okay with her!  She has just discovered her cousin, and he is weeping loudly and kissing her. The emotion is moving, even for us as we read and imagine the scene. Especially as Rachel gets Laban to meet Jacob, and the whole story is shared.

In this ordinary place, something of the divine happened.

When we know an open heaven, when we know the activity of heaven is closer than others think and when no place is ordinary, that we have renamed it Bethel, the house of God, the gate of heaven, then we also know that any day, even today, can be a divinely appointed day.

Many seem stuck with an attitude of ‘we cannot’. Like the shepherds who thought they had to wait for more help before they could roll the stone away. They were stuck, thinking the stone was too heavy to roll away. However, love can shift strongholds.

I am thinking of another stone, aren’t you?

So many are stuck in their life. Stuck behind their own customs and way of doing things.  Stuck because life is too difficult to change.  But love came and rolled away the stone.  And everything changed …

Heaven might be closer than you think. I don’t mean today, you may be there. But maybe today, heaven will visit you?

Where is a sacred place for you? Is it your church? Is it a favourite chair or a room in your home? Is it a certain walk you take most days?

Jacob has just had a dream of a stairway to heaven and angels ascending and descending. See what happens next.

 ^“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 Lordwill be my God ²² andthis 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.” (Genesis 28 v 16-22)

On his journey, in a place called Luz, he falls asleep with a stone for a pillow.

So often, we think we are simply moving around (or sleeping) in a secular place, thinking the sacred places are reserved for church services.

What if everywhere is a sacred place?

The holiness of heaven will find you, even if you are sleeping rough under the skies with a stone as a pillow. As you read this, look around you, glance at your bearings, in this ordinary space, I believe, ‘the Lord is in this place.’ Begin to be more aware of this truth.

The pillow becomes a pillar. Some won’t even visualise how a stone can be a pillow. Are you a person who believes the ordinary can become significant in the presence of the Lord? If so, then wherever you are can become holy ground. You can rename anything as ‘the house of God’ simply because you know without doubt that the Lord is present.

What commitment would you make if you truly believed, as Jacob did, that where you are right now, your home, work, and neighbourhood is where God is? What conversation would you have with the Lord? In the place of His presence, you can be as honest as you want.

If you know heaven is closer to you than you sometimes realise, then how would your vocabulary change?

Jacob is doing two things: fleeing from his brother, who wants to kill him, and pursuing the prospect of a wife for himself. He is heading to the region where his family came from, including his grandfather, Abram, and his great-grandfather, Terah, who had settled there. On the way, he would meet with God in a dramatic way.

“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 itstood 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.” (Genesis 28 v10-15)

He reaches a certain place. We are not told what that place was called, not yet anyway. It was getting dark. We have a picture of vulnerability. Escaping, sleeping outside, a stone for a pillow, this wasn’t a great time for him.

Are you in a vulnerable, uncertain place today and tomorrow?

God came to Jacob, and He can come to you, too.

God calls on the covenant first given to Abraham. “I am … the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac.” He then promises Jacob what was in the original Abrahamic covenant: land, descendants, blessing to all nations, and His presence with him.

The ladder he saw in his dream indicates that heaven is never far from any of us. Angels were coming and going. God is involved with Jacob’s situation. That was the message. In this uncertain ‘certain’ place, God was there. We don’t have to have everything in order or attend a spiritual conference to find God. God is here. Not because we are good enough or we have arrived at a certain destination. God is here because He is.

It is this truth that changes everything.