Thought for the Day – Saturday 18th July
‘Jacob left Beersheba 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… 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.”’ (Genesis 28: 10-13a, 16-17)
As a child when I visited with my Nana and Papa in Overtown we would
often go for a walk to the top end of the village, as it was then, and go up
and down Jacob’s Ladder. It was a path of many wooden steps which led to a
stream at the bottom. It was quite a trek when you had little legs but always
great fun when you got there for you play on the steps, play on the flat rocks
and guddle about in the burn for ages. Easter at Jacob’s Ladder was always
great fun too because that was the day everyone in the village seemed to take
their painted eggs and roll them down the hill there!
I remember one day asking my Nana why it was called Jacob’s Ladder and
she said that when we got home she would show me why it might have been given
that name. So when we finally got home she collected the big family bible with
its pictures, with waxy paper protecting them, from the bedroom upstairs and we
sat down together in front of the fire while she read me this story from
Genesis we are thinking about today! I remember being mesmerised by the thought
of angels going up and down the steps of the ladder and that ladder reaching
all the way from heaven to earth. It also gave me a whole new lot of games to
play at Jacob’s Ladder!
I suppose we could say Jacob was really one of those characters who
initially showed no promise. He was a liar and a cheat, a bit of an opportunist
in the way he stole his brother Esau’s birthright and someone who behaved
shamefully in the way he deceived his father. So as he goes towards Haran I am
sure he was feeling well-pleased with himself and the thought of God would have
been the last thing on his mind.
Yet, God had other ideas for Jacob and he used this vivid dream to
confront him regarding his ways!
However, this was no overnight change of heart and character for Jacob.
No indeed, he remained a wily schemer for some time!
Yet, this dream in which God met with him and opened up a whole new way
of life to him and gave him a whole new perspective on life offering a whole
new relationship with God was to be the start of gradual change process in
Jacob’s life – it was like a seed of love had been sown by God within Jacob – a
seed God would nurture and grow.
As we know that seed did grow and Jacob became one of the most revered
founding fathers of the Jewish faith – labelled a ‘man of God’.
We are the modern day sowers of those seeds of love and we have to just
keep sowing seeds of love even if we sow them in the most unlikely places or
within the most unlikely people – God will to his purpose nurture those seeds
and grow those seeds.
Prayer
Loving Lord,
Ever present in our world and dwelling in our lives, we do not need to
look to the top of that ladder to see you, we only need to look around to find
you – within ourselves, beyond ourselves, within the eyes of another. We do not
need to listen for the distant thunder of your voice to find you, we need only
to look at the life around us – in the words of a child, in the questions of
the curious, in the very rhythm of our heartbeat. Lord, makes us ever mindful
of you around us and within us and ever mindful of our calling to sow your
seeds of love within the world – even in the most unlikely places and people.
In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen
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