Thursday Meditation - A Bethel Moment

A Bethel Moment

Genesis 28:10-19a

In society today, we hear the phrase, “a senior moment.”  This usually means we’ve forgotten something or someone as we get older year by year.  However, this is one type of moment in lie.  We’ve experience the “Ahha moments”, a sacred moment and regret moments.  Today we will look at Jacob’s Bethel Moment.

His moment is like ours; unplanned and unexpected in the places we’ve journeyed too.  We find ourselves going to a certain place to get away from daily life.  For Jacob he was on the run from his brother Esau, Genesis 27.  That’s a story for another day.  However, when we go to a certain place it is usually a place of rest and peace.  While there we experience glimpse, images and emotions we rarely experience during the hustle and bustle of our days.

Jacob’s Bethel Moment came in a dream.  For this to happen he was lying down, resting and unplugging his mind because he felt safe.  Although the rock with his pillow, he drifted into what we call REM (Rapid Eye Moment) sleep where he could dream 5 to 20 minutes.  He needed the rest and this may have been a familiar place for him. 

As Jacob slept he had vivid dreams and he remembered his dream.  So many times when we dream we barely remember them but there are those we remember and say to ourselves, “God are you for real?!”  Some dreams are so real that we will wake up in a cold sweat and panicking because some of our dreams are tragic.  As we stay on the happy path of dreams, Jacob woke up and was afraid because he may have never dreamed about an encounter with God like this.  He saw a vision and then God revealed his future.  Just as God has spoken to Jacob, God speaks to us and reveal to us our future. 

Jacobs dream gave him hope and peace.  He may have thought the place Luz was the reason he dreamed about the ladder to heaven and his conversation with God.  I would say it was the rest his body needed in order for God to speak with him and remember his Bethel moment.  We may not change the name of a place to have a Bethel Moment, but we can allow God to move us from rapid busy place to a place where we can say this is the House of God and this is the gate to heaven.

Prayer:  Dear God, as we sleep and even nap help us to dream of your images, give us ideas to help those who need help and stir our emotions so w hen we awake we will say this is the Lord’s doing. Amen.