This week.

Choices, as we’ve been reflecting on in our Old Testament lessons, aren’t always blindingly obvious.  Sometimes we need help figuring things out and learning what we can’t see clearly, either because we don’t think it’s important or our limited understanding prevents us from seeing the full picture.  It’s in those times when someone else’s vision, insight, perspective, can help us.

Dreams, like the one Jacob has that night at Bethel, are a common biblical way of understanding.  It’s in dreams when we’re not in control, not focused on what we think is important, and is a chief way for God to get the message across to us.  Bethel, a place significant only for the stones that seem to be around, was a place with no name; it’s significance and name come from Jacob’s dream experience there.

That dream opens Jacob open to the profound experience of God that becomes a place of worship and encounter for Jacob.  It’s the moment of his inclusion into the promise of the covenant given to Abraham.  It’s a place of promise and a future.  Jacob is to keep going, not with all of his worries and problems solved, but with the experience of the God of Abraham and Isaac which was absent from his thoughts and actions previously.  Jacob finds his life and his story in the story of God and it changes Jacob.

Where are you open to change in a time of uncertainty and change?  Who helps guide and inform you when you don’t see all angles?  What is your experience of God and is that experience centered around what God can (or should) do for you?  Like Jacob, we all have experience of family conflict and issues.  Like Jacob, we all feel the pressure to perform and achieve.  Like Jacob, we all find ourselves constantly in motion, fearful of the past and uncertain about the future.  But like Jacob, we can find wherever we are, that place significant only by its insignificance, a place of encounter, transformation, and hope.

–Thomas

Gathering Online: https://bit.ly/TCZoom

Tuesday Checkin on Zoom @ 6 pm
Join Thomas and Kelley on Zoom. This is a time to check-in or just say hello.

Sunday Liturgy of the Word on Zoom @ 6 pm
Join us on Zoom for a service of prayers and scripture.