Praise the Lord, for He is the giver of all good and perfect gifts. The best gifts in this life, the perfect gifts in this life, are free. They are freely given and gratefully received. His love, His grace, His peace, and His salvation are free. The gift of family, the gift of friends, and the gift of church all are free. The gift of this new day is free. Praise the Lord for every day, for all the days the Lord gives us on earth to live and love and serve.
The Lord blessed our time in Boston last week. It is always a great thrill and blessing to be with our children and grandchildren. They are growing up so quickly. We praise the Lord for them and for their parents. We spent time just being with them. They would get up early to come to be with us in our bed, cuddling up. We walked with them to their school in the mornings. We also took them to one of their favorite restaurants, which happens to be an Indian restaurant. We walked with them on their familiar city streets. I had a good report from my doctors visit in Boston. Thank you all for praying.
One
of my nephews, who lives with his family in Sydney Australia, visited us over
the weekend. He is the son of my first cousin from my dad's side.
He and his wife are blessed with three beautiful children. They are
committed Christians and are involved in the ministry and mission of the
Hillsong Church in Sydney. My nephew is currently in Chicago on a
business trip. He flew here for the weekend. We had beautiful moments
reminiscing and recalling the wonderful grace and faithfulness of our Lord in
our lives. I spent some time with his family in Sydney during my recent
visit to Australia. Alice and I have been walking almost every day in the
evening, enjoying the evening sun and anticipating the return of spring birds
and the blooming of spring flowers. Praise the Lord for America the
Beautiful.
The
Super Bowl event was glorious and fantastic. The nations come to
celebrate a national pastime and a beautiful event.
We
are planning for an evening of celebration and feasting on Saturday, February
18. Our chefs are preparing Italian, Mexican, Indian, Swedish, and German
foods. It will be a blast. We praise the Lord for His generosity
and bountiful blessings. We get to celebrate His gifts, His grace, and
His love that never ends. The dinner will start at 6:00 PM and it will be
followed by a concert.
I
first heard the story of Jacob from my uncle, who was a wonderful and
imaginative story teller. I was four or five when I heard the
story during our family evening prayer time. The story of Jacob and his
brother Esau is a tangled one, filled with deceit, intrigue, and animosity.
Esau despised his birthright and sold it to Jacob for a pot of
stew. Jacob then deceived their father Isaac and got him to bless him
(Jacob) as the ruler and chief heir of the family. Because of all
this tensions ran high between the two men. Those problems
continued until Jacob eventually had to leave home. Jacob feared for his
life so, taking his belongings with him, he picked up and left his home and
went far away to stay with relatives in the east.
In the early part of his life, Jacob did not seem to have much time for God. We never read of any conversations about God or with Him before he left home. We never read about him worshiping, nor any encounters with God in all of his life up until this point. Jacob had little time for God because he had been too busy scheming and planning how to get ahead. Too much of his time has been wasted thinking only of himself. There was no time for God, and there was no time for anyone else but himself, but God was about to dramatically interrupt Jacob's self-centered life.
Jacob had been on the go all day, running from his problems. Finally, night came and Jacob fell asleep. He used a rock for a pillow under his head, and above him were only the open heavens. As he slept God revealed himself to Jacob. In his dream there was what appeared to be a long ladder, or staircase of light, which reached to heaven and the very throne of God. On it the messengers of God were traveling up and down between heaven and earth. They were delivering people’s petitions to God and bringing God’s help to the people of the earth. Jacob was one of the privileged few who saw with his own eyes the workings of the kingdom of God and the spiritual activity of heaven itself. Here God revealed himself and gave his promise to Jacob that he would be the heir to the promises God had made to his father and his grandfather before him. The Lord repeated those promises to him personally saying, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth... All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (Genesis 28:13-15).
Jacob called the place Bethel, which in Hebrew means ‘House of God.’ This special place seemed to him to be the very dwelling place of the Lord. Jacob had met God although he had not been expecting to meet him, nor was he even thinking of God. This event was purely grace. It is likely that he did not even want to meet God. He was only thinking of getting away from his brother. His mind was full of thoughts about where he was going and what was ahead of him but God broke into Jacob’s self-absorbed world in an amazing way. God came to Jacob even when Jacob was not seeking God. God opened his world to Jacob, even when Jacob had closed his world to God.
It is fascinating to notice that Jacob did not try to climb the ladder that he saw. He knew somehow that he could not climb up to God, but that he had to let God come to Him. It wasn’t Jacob that was trying to find God, but it was God who was trying to find Jacob. It is written, "While we were yet in our sin Christ died for us". It is always God who takes the initiative. It is not we who find God, but he who finds us. God came to Jacob that night and opened the door to heaven. Jesus said, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Revelation 3:20). He is the God who looks for us and knocks at our heart’s door. This is called prevenient grace. That is, the Lord's grace pursues us even before we know Him, just as the Lord, the Hound of heaven, pursued Saul of Tarsus. Saul was not looking for Jesus. He was on the journey to destroy the lovers of Jesus. Jesus meets Saul on the way and Saul's life changed for ever.
Later, Jacob would wander away from Bethel, the place where he first met God, as wonderful as that experience was, but God would again call him back. The Lord of our journeys calls us back to "Bethel", for we are prone wander away from the Lord who loves us. There extends a stairway from the heart of God to our hearts. When we are awakened by the Holy Spirit, we are stunned and overwhelmed buy the sheer and beauty of the presence of the Lord and by the magnitude of His majesty, and we can say with Jacob, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it... How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven” (Genesis 28:16,17).
In his book, The Spiritual Life of Children, the famous Harvard psychiatrist, Robert Coles, tells the story of Alice, a ten-year-old girl who came from a family that did not believe in God. She expressed her doubts to him with these words: “I remember... I saw the people next door coming home from church, and I looked out the window after they’d left and I tried to ask God if they were right and we were wrong, because we never go. But how can you talk with God? I said, ‘All right, God, please, I’m young, and I’d like to know, so give us a signal, me and my mommy and daddy.’ I knew he wouldn’t — and he didn’t.” But then she says, “Later, when I went to the park, I thought there might not be a God, but somehow we have this park and the flowers are out, and how did all of this begin, that’s what I’d like to know!” God met her in the park with miracles all around her. It was when and where she least expected him. He is there and he is longing for us.
.In Jesus,
Brown
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