"Out of my stony griefs....Bethel I'll raise"

Among all the patriarchs, Jacob intrigues me most.

He seems to have had a strange initiation into faith. Of course, the strangeness was of his own making; he literally (almost) had to be carried across the Jordan and into faith, kicking and screaming for quite a while before the assurance of faith brought peace and contentment.

Still, his story of faith is very instructive and very comforting, because though many of us would disagree, faith is actually one of the hardest things to come into!!

I think Jacob was a silent, introspective, morose man, though he was absolutely practical about life - he found no reason to go after fancy, whimsy and philosophy. If the power to obtain something was in his hand, so be it; if not, he wanted none of it. He seems to have been the kind of man who laid his plans deliberately and with great care, to the point of scheming and out-thinking anyone who came in his way.

And God definitely had to show him, through the experiences of his life, 'you can't double-guess Me! Whether you like it or not, I exist. What's more, I have a plan. I have purposes you cannot fathom. And you will obey Me, no matter how long it takes Me to get you to. The history of the whole world depends on you! And you will do My will.'

*********************************************************************************

God exists. He has plans and purposes. Did you think you got your life all planned out? You might want to re-think that and hold that thought - God has plans and purposes for you. He also knows how to get you where He can bless you and take His plans forward.

Jacob thought, if I could get hold of what's really important - the rights of the first-born -  I got it made for life. God said, think again. Jacob HAD to re-think what he thought he had all worked out. After gaining the rights of the first-born by subterfuge and deception, he found himself running for his life - and all his resourcefulness would not be of any use this time. Esau was out not just to regain his rights - Esau was out to make sure there would be no question of Jacob's ever regaining ANYTHING - he would ensure Jacob didn't exist anymore. And Jacob fled for his life (Genesis 35:1)

And here, in his hour of darkness and gloom (literally, 'because the sun had set', Genesis 28:11), he had nothing but a price on his head and a stone for a pillow (Genesis 28:11); an uncertain future in a faraway land, far from home and family, a life on the run. And here....in this hour, The Lord finally gathered up the pieces of Jacob's life, in a place Jacob would later lovingly call Bethel, translated 'the house of God'.

At Bethel, The Lord recommissioned him; nothing was said about the sordidness of the past, the deceptions, the lies, theft....only a new day was promised. Holy anointing was given. The prophetic promise given to Jacob at Bethel is still in force today; The Lord's purposes would stand no matter how weak human beings were and how obstinately they withstood Him. Hear this:

"And behold, the Lord stood over and beside him and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father [forefather] and the God of Isaac; I will give to you and to your descendants the land on which you are lying.

And your offspring shall be as [countless as] the dust or sand of the ground, and you shall spread abroad to the west and the east and the north and the south; and by you and your Offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed and bless themselves.
 
And behold, I am with you and will keep (watch over you with care, take notice of) you wherever you may go, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done all of which I have told you."
 - Genesis 28:13-15
 
Jacob now had an unforgettable shot of heavenly medicine, as it were; he was just beginning to understand what it meant to rely not on his own scheming, but on Someone who never had to scheme because He was always in control!
 
But much more than that, there was something Jacob had never thought about in his wildest dreams - an anointing, a swearing-in ceremony - his own (totally against his own inclinations at that point), as the one through whom God would bless the whole world! Acutely aware of his own guilt, this must have come as an inexplicable shock to Jacob - how could the God of the whole world, the God of his fathers, lay aside his scheming and guilt, and what's more, commission him with all the rights of the first-born? And hey!!!!!! IS THIS WHAT I WAS AFTER WHEN I ROBBED ESAU????? Gosh, I could never have dreamed! And now I'm so scared I'm not sure I want this! I had just thought of having it made for life - a little plot of land, a pleasant life, blessing, quietness, peace all round....I certainly didn't think about the whole world!
 
The whole idea seemed to Jacob so outlandish, that the severely practical Jacob immediately came to the rescue. He thought, tremblingly, okay.....never mind the whole world. That's God's business. For now, let me just have God in my life, for all the things I need to do for myself. See what he asked God:
 
'Then Jacob made a vow, saying, If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go and will give me food to eat and clothing to wear,
 
So that I may come again to my father's house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God;
 
And this stone which I have set up as a pillar (monument) shall be God's house [a sacred place to me], and of all [the increase of possessions] that You give me I will give the tenth to You.'
 - Genesis 28:20-22
 
This was tentative faith, if ever! God says, I will bless the world through you, and Jacob says back to God, for now, just give me food to eat and clothes to wear, and take me back to my family in peace. THEN, and only THEN, You will be my God.
 
********************************************************************************
 
I love the fact that Jacob STRUGGLED to believe, because it shows me that my own struggles to believe are not at all freak events. At every turn, Jacob's trust in God was for practical things; for things he could see, touch, feel and which existed before his eyes. Isn't that how we all are? It's so hard for us to see past our present struggles at God's big picture and God's Great Big Plan; at the same time, we are incredulous that God just credits our measly faith and looks past our horrendous record of sins. We find this so incredible that we have constant trouble believing it. We go back into the past, digging out new evidence; sometimes, like Jacob, we just give in in exhaustion, saying, God, I don't want anything, just food to eat, clothes to wear and a family.
 
And yet, God creates BETHEL for us.
 
There is a great big picture, a great big plan......our little lives are nowhere NEAR being the kind of amphitheatre God wants them to be, a great big arena where He can do things the world only dreams of. While we are busy cleaning our porch and our inner rooms, He is busy transforming our little hovels into a great big wide mansion where he can triumphantly display what He wants to achieve in us.
 
**********************************************************************************
 
Let's take heart from Jacob's "step-by-step" approach to God. At Bethel, all that Jacob would say was, okay.....let me trust just a little bit. I've relied on myself long enough; I don't even know whether I will live to see tomorrow. Let me just trust God, and let Him provide for me.
 
Small as it seems, even this step eludes many of us. But Jacob took it; and he never forgot Bethel. He came back to it whenever he needed assurance all over again.
 
Sometimes all we have may be just a little faith, exhaustion and no strength to see the big picture. Our pillows may turn to stone. Our pasts may haunt us, threatening to cast an evil shadow on an uncertain future.....and may be our sun has set like it did for Jacob at Bethel.
 
Then, THEN, let us sleep the blessed sleep of Jacob......and God will come to us to recommission us, to reassure us, to promise to provide forever our needs....to untangle our pasts. For now, let us just trust for the day-to-day....and He will soon take us to where He can show us what His big picture for us means.
 
Bethel, to you and me, is any place where we come to the end of our own stubborn strength, our own fierce self-independence, and our constant digging in our pasts, looking for evidence to condemn us. Bethel is where trust is born, maybe as a wobbly toddler, on spindly legs, but who will ever grow into full adulthood!  Bethel is where God tells us, do not be afraid. Your future is in My hands, and it is a glorious one. TRUST ME.

*********************************************************************************

I want to bring into focus, before I close, a wonderful hymn by Sarah F. Adams, which wonderfully puts Jacob's possible thoughts at Bethel into words:

Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I'd be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear steps unto heav'n;
All that Thou sendest me in mercy giv'n;
Angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Then with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs Bethel I'll raise;
So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!

Or if on joyful wing, cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upwards I fly,
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
 
The song wonderfully expresses all the deathly darkness of Jacob's condition, his utter physical and emotional exhaustion with his condition, and his inability to even come into the little faith that he needed. I hope and pray that, as many of us that identify with the struggles of Jacob at Bethel, we will take heart, knowing God has not left us destitute, but is fully able and willing to bridge the gap that our little wobbly faith leaves unfilled, and to bring us into the light of His blessed promise for us!

The "great trees of Mamre"

The feeling of "home" is not a simple one.

Where do you feel "at home"?

When we really think about it, it has many levels. It has to do with immediate surroundings. It has also to do with neighbours and neighbourhoods. It is God who certainly keeps us no matter where we live, of course, and there's no denying that. In that sense, it really SHOULDN'T matter where we live.

Of course, most of us don't even have the luxury of thinking about where we'd like to live, on this earth. Where our temporary "home on earth" is or will be isn't something we always get to choose. Often, most of us don't even think about where we live. We just live where we live.

*********************************************************************************

 "the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground."

"And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

Sometimes life on earth is merely just that - life on mere old earth. The temporal, impermanent, itinerant, transient feel of it permeates everything.  The feeling of it being just a passage into something beyond cannot be shaken.

Abraham had been called out of his ancestral home without much preamble. He actually was a man who lived in tents all his life, never putting down roots. God had actually said to him, "Lift up your eyes from where you are and look north and south, east and west. All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you." 

If Abraham had liked, he might have just said, "Oh well, it's all mine anyway. So let me put down roots, build myself something nice, peacefully grow a family, take my ease." It is very instructive that he never ever thought this to himself. He lived in tents all through. He, strangely, felt, even though the land was his, that he was an alien and a stranger on earth, no matter where he lived. He was looking for some place that would never change, some place where he could actually live forever. In fact, when we look inside ourselves, we look for the same qualities in a place we would call "home". And Abraham knew there could never be "home" on earth.

And the writer of Hebrews was absolutely right to say what he said about people like Abraham:

"And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

We spend most of our time here on earth putting down roots. That's because we have closed our eyes to looking beyond earth. Everything about earth screams out to us, "TEMPORAL!!!" But we still refuse to look up beyond the horizon.....to the land beyond. Abraham was a man who lived entirely for the land beyond earth.

I'm not saying we must not build homes and houses, or grow families. I'm just saying it shouldn't be the only thing we do.

*********************************************************************************

For a time, Abraham did live for a long time in one single place. In fact, he got so attached to it that he even came back and bought land there, to bury his wife Sarah there. The Bible introduces this wonderful place for us for the first time in Genesis 13:18:

"So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD."

The King James Version calls this place the "plain of Mamre".

Abraham felt at home at this place much more than in any other place he lived in. In Genesis 18, The LORD appeared to Abraham at Mamre as he "sat in the tent door in the heat of the day" (Genesis 18:1); and this was the first time The LORD spoke to him about the birth of Isaac, the son of the Promise.

Mamre, traditionally, was a place between the Bethel and Ai of those days; Abraham did not feel at home with the Canaanites who lived in these cities, and he just wanted to stay apart. Besides, I do feel he wanted a place which afforded gentle shade, with the only trees around for miles and miles in a very hot plain. The trees at Mamre are legendary; there is still a gnarled old oak that the Israelis call "Abraham's oak", very near where Mamre was supposed to have been. The trees were said to be the terebinth and the oak.

The picture of the "great trees" is refreshing when one thinks of the phrase in Genesis 18:1, "the heat of the day". The "cool of the day" refreshing of Genesis 3:8 had now come full circle - the wages of the fall - to "the heat of the day".

Abraham appears to have felt the loneliness and the isolation of being an alien and stranger, both literally and figuratively, in his wanderings. Loneliness and isolation have far deeper moorings in us when we keenly feel the effect of being strangers on earth, where we can call no one friend and no place home. Even while we look ahead to the heavenly city, the weariness of wandering and frugal living, and the terror of not being secure shatter our peace and take away our repose.

For Abraham, on temporal earth, there still was a safe place he could go to, to find refreshing and life-green, where The LORD ministered to him - and this was Mamre.

*********************************************************************************
I find that throughout our lives (and I can testify in my own case), God provides refreshing little oases on the way. It might be a place, or a person, or even just portions of the Word, sometimes even a song. Whatever it is, it becomes Mamre to us. That's what safe places are meant to do - provide the temporary refuge with all the comforts of being near The LORD, fully able to tap into His infinite resources for our needs. God somehow knows we need these safe places.
 
Let us come aside to our retreat day after day, within the garden where He comes to meet us....or stand at the entrance to the tent, "in the heat of the day", as Abraham did. And our God will come and refresh us.