Sweet Dreams from God

Do you ever need a Word from the Lord...I mean really need to hear his voice? Maybe you have a huge decision to make and you want to get it right. Say something devastating happens...and you truly hope to know that the Lord is there...that he cares. Do you ever look for his presence, his voice, his fingerprints...anything...to help stave off the desperate fear that there’s really no one out there for you...no God who watches, who listens, who acts?
We’ve all been praying for the J. family because of the loss of John’s mom. This week, one of our members told me that just before she passed, he sat up straight in bed, wide awake, at 4:00AM awakened by a dream about the Jackson family. “Pray for this family,” he was told. So he did. Through the night our brother poured out his prayers for the J’s.
Those of you who have been around for a while have heard this story; others may not know that the very first Sunday I started in ministry here at Hopwood, I almost drowned, along with Doug Theobald. A group of us were swimming in the creek at Laurel Fork. Doug and I got pulled into and under a small waterfall there. Doug needed mouth to mouth resuscitation to get him breathing again. I needed Tom Banks to reach down and pull me out of the dark water. As Andy and I lay on the bed recounting the day’s events, I picked up a Bible, opened to the book of Psalms and began to read the first psalm on the page: Psalm 124- If the Lord had not been on our side —let Israel now say...then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; then over us would have gone the raging waters. Marcia came into the room a few minutes later and said, “When you didn’t show at evening service, we went ahead and read next week’s psalm together...something about If the Lord hadn’t been on our side the waters would have poured over us. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I know there are many, many times when we look for, pray for, long for a word from the Lord and don’t get it. But I’ve heard your stories...sometimes his presence is unmistakable.
What does it take to experience the gift of his presence? Do you have to be in the right place at the right time? Do you have to be in a certain state of holiness? Do you have to be looking for his appearance...tuned into his presence? This morning we remember the story of Jacob, and the Lord’s appearing to him.
Jacob wasn’t in the fifth pew in church when God showed up. He wasn’t meditating on scripture or scanning the airwaves when the Lord appeared to him. Jacob was actually on the run. Isaac’s least favorite son duped his dopey twin brother Esau out of his inheritance, then dressed up in his hairy, muscle-bound brother’s clothing to steal his father’s blessing from Esau. Esau was a man of action. “The day of our father’s death is not far off,” he said, “When he’s gone, I’ll get my revenge on Jacob.” The twins’ mother, Rebekah, heard of the threat and shipped Jacob, off to brother Laban’s house far away in Paddan Aram. “While you’re there, find a wife among our own people,” she said. She should have said, “Take a wife or two or three or four!...but that’s next week’s story.
This week’s story finds Jacob on the run...one step ahead of Esau. His grandfather’s servant had made this journey many years ago to look for a wife for Isaac. He had gone with camels and gifts and great hope. Jacob was running to save his skin. He pushed hard all day under the unforgiving sun, looking back over his shoulder often, fearful of sitting too long in the shade. He didn’t stop to eat, but moved steadily through the evening hours and walked into the night. Finally he could go no further. He lay on the ground with only a flat rock for a pillow, exhausted, fretful, and scared. No fire, no companion. Home was a thing of the past and who could know what tomorrow might bring. There Jacob “the heel grabber,” Jacob the Deceiver slept. And there, under the night sky, God came near.
In a dream, Jacob saw a set of stairs stretching from the earth all the way to heaven...and on the stairs Jacob saw angels coming and going, ascending and descending all busy doing God’s bidding. Then Jacob sensed that God came near. He heard the voice of God say: “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 children; and your descendants will be many, 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. He was rigid and chilled, shaking with fright as he leaped to his feet 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.” In the morning chill before dawn, Jacob upended the rock on which his head rested; he poured oil upon it to mark the holiness of this place and called the place Beth-el, the House of 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 bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house
The other day, I told Art Jablonsky I was preaching about Jacob and he asked: Have you ever wondered why God chose Jacob? Why indeed? Why was the younger brother, Jacob chosen to be heir of the promise, chosen to receive a visitation from God? Why did he get to see the angels; hear the voice of the Lord? Wasn’t he a cheat, a heel-grabber, a deceiver of parents, a liar, a polygamist? Jacob wasn’t seeking God. He was running through the night, trying to distance himself from his crooked deeds. He was running from responsibility, running from the hard truth.
And still God showed up. He showed up in a place where Jacob wasn’t expecting any kind of religious encounter. God showed up when Jacob was sound asleep. Isn’t that interesting. Do any of you hear things at night? Do any of you sense God’s presence at night? Sometimes we stay on the run during the day, filling our hours with voices and music and chatter and busyness. But when we lay down, the Spirit sometimes comes uncomfortably near, and begins to speak to us...to deal with us. A few weeks back I was tossing and turning. I was fretting about three relationships that have been greatly strained or broken. Three friendships have been compromised; three relationships need healing. The Lord began to speak to me about taking some action to bridge the gap in those broken relationships. I had been in avoidance mode for months...in turmoil, but not willing to do the hard work of reconciliation. The brokeness of those friendships had me bound and crippled. I awoke again and again that night, sensing the Spirit near, sensing the Spirit saying: Take action on this now. In the wee hours of the morning I relented, and resolved to work on bridge building the next day. That night I experienced the truth of this morning’s psalm, 139:
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.
You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue, O Lord, you know it completely.
You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast.
If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night’,
even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you....
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
The next morning I awoke to face the music, to begin the hard work of reconciliation. The phone rang at 7:45 in the morning...before I even had a chance to act on my resolution, after months of silence, the first person on my list called me, wanting to talk. I took that as a sure sign that God was in this process. By 9:30 I made the second hard call and to my amazement found a friend who wanted to move forward. I made the third call and had to leave a message, so I tried to make it a gracious, hopeful one. Do I still have work to do? Sure, but 500 lbs. lifted from my shoulders that morning, because the Spirit came near and said, Do it.
I hope you get to hear God’s voice when you really need it. Maybe his presence will come to you as you open the pages of His Word. Perhaps you’ll sense His voice through the voice of a friend. Maybe incredible circumstances will come together that only God could engineer...circumstances that force you to say, God, only you could arrange that...I get the message. Maybe you’ll even receive a visitation...Maybe God will come to you when you’re quiet, and most vulnerable...in a dream, as a presence. God may even speak to you, as he did Jacob. Maybe you’ll hear from him because your ears are open to hear, because your heart is expectant to listen. Maybe you’ll pursue him until you find him...although C.S. Lewis said that the notion of our pursuit of God is almost as laughable as the mouse’s pursuit of the cat!
But if our morning story of Jacob’s surprise encounter with God is any indication, your next encounter with God will more likely come at a time and place and reason of His choosing. And why would He choose to come to people as crooked and lazy and manipulative as we are? Maybe, just maybe, he visited Jacob to give hope to people like you and me, sons and daughters of Jacob. Maybe he came to Jacob to, chose Jacob to show us that he cares about every one of us, even when we are being slippery, evasive, and hard-to-pin-down.
Thanks be to God who comes near to us when we come near to him. Thanks be to God who comes near to us when we’re on the run...when we’re in the dark...when we’re lost and frightened and stupid and don’t know what to do. Sleep well tonight, but not too well. Pleasant Dreams from God.