The bacon burned. The toilet was clogged. The sun wasn't shining. The rain was falling. It wasn't even 7am and I was already defeated. I climbed into my tub, turned the water on, not ready to meet my Savior but not ready for the day either. I should've known. I should've seen it coming. God speaks when we can do nothing but listen. I feel him most when I am stripped back to nothing and he shines brightest in my dark every single time.
I'm reading through Genesis right now. I started it during our stay at home. It felt right to go back to the basics, the beginning, and wonder at our Creator for a time. This particular morning I was reading about Jacob and his ladder dream. Jacob was out on a trip or more like getting out of dodge. He was fleeing from his own mistakes and deceit and didn't deserve to get a visit from the Almighty, but then again, none of us do. It's night and so he sets a stone under his head to sleep. My first question was why a stone? Maybe he wasn't really wanting to sleep, knows he needs to keep one eye open, just in case. He's certainly not in a good place in his life. He's ugly and wrong and completely guilty (with a little help from his mom). He's running away and his life is far from normal or acceptable or easy. I can't help but wonder if he felt like I do sometimes and questioned where the path of his life was heading and if he even wanted to go that down that road. There are times when life's circumstances feel more like dead ends than detours and I feel like I just want to make a quick u-turn. I have doubted the perfect rightness of the hard roads that God has led me down at different times in my life. I have felt that recently with all the change and weirdness and anxiousness in our world. I have had nights where I felt like I too was sleeping on stones.
So, here's Jake, laying down to sleep, sort of, and suddenly he sees a vision. It's not actually of a ladder like the child's game but the scripture says that it is of a stairway, with the Lord at the top. The visual of this on my grumpy dreary morning inspired me to dig deeper, a stairway to heaven, I'd take that. Lots of us would! Except, maybe I wouldn't. That specific morning I could also easily imagine myself starting up those steps and then getting frustrated or angry and flopping my sorry self on one of those steps, crossing my arms, and giving up. It's too steep. It's too hard. My legs hurt and I'm tired. My heart is weary and I quit. I question, why this way God? Why so many steps and why does it have to be so hard? Sometimes I want to fuss and stomp and cry, throw a good fit and just stop. Sometimes I just don't want to do it anymore, like sleeping on a stone, I'm over it! But, there's always a "but", but, God makes a promise as Jacob, and I and, maybe you, are looking up that long stairwell. He reaches down, grabs us by the hand and helps us stand back up. He says in Genesis 28:15, "What's more, I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go...I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you." Jacob had a long way to go in life and there would be seasons that felt like uphill climbs and wrong turns but God would always be with him. Let that soak in. He's there through our grief, our loneliness, our guilt and our shame. He's there when it feels like no one else is. He's there when we want to throw the towel in and admit defeat. He's there when we don't get what we deserve and when we get exactly what we deserve. When the way looks dark and the storms are pouring down around us, he's there. He won't leave or quit or give up on us. He's going to help and hold and stay and he will most certainly fulfill all of his promises.
From burnt bacon to blessings, that is God's way. He picks us up, dusts us off and leads us on up the stairway, to his throne room, to his glorious goodness. That morning, I looked straight up and knew that he had given me a glimpse of heaven and it was enough, more than enough. I heaved my tired self out of the tub. I listed my gratitude and wrote out my prayer. I did the day, the mom things, the teaching things, the wife things. It wasn't a perfect day but I knew I could and would keep climbing because it's always worth it with him. His way, his promises, eternity with him are worth every single step.
