Some nights our sleep is filled with dreams. Do you remember your dreams? Are they absurd or realistic? Some dreams may be so vivid that as your eyes open, it is hard to know if you are dreaming or awake. In Genesis 28 Jacob dreams a very vivid, very real dream, which turns out to be so much more than just a dream…

Jacob had been sent on this journey amidst turmoil of his own deception, loss and family conflict. He left on this journey for refuge and seeking the blessing of his father Isaac had bestowed upon him. Darkness came and Jacob stopped for the night in the wilderness. Where else would you choose a stone for a pillow but in the wilderness?

Scripture calls this spot where he rested, “a certain place,” “a particular place,” “ a good place.” And it was indeed, though Jacob didn’t know it as his eyes closed and he drifted to sleep and into a dream. This was no ordinary dream.

“He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord.”

Genesis 28: 12-13

Here Jacob heard God speaking directly to him the words of covenant, of promise that God had made with Abraham and now also with him.

“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.14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 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 22: 13-15

There is the truth of the dream that met Jacob that very day and changed the course of his lifetime. And there is the truth of that dream so much greater than even Jacob could imagine.

Because that stairway… that junction where heaven met earth… yeah, that was so much more than a dream! And while Jacob never lived to see it and we still yearn for it’s ultimate fulfillment, Jesus our Emmanuel, God with us fulfills this vision!

Jesus is that stairway resting on earth with its top reaching to heaven… and Jesus is the only one who could ever bridge that gap between heaven and earth.

Then he said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man, the one who is the stairway between heaven and earth.

John 1:51

God who was, and who is and who is to come…

There, woven into scripture in even greater detail than we ever could imagine that some days just makes you stop in awe and wonder of it all!

~Jillene