Do you ever ask yourself what you will be doing a thousand
years from now? For we are all eternal beings, every single one of us.
We all have a story to tell that never ends.
Some of you are blessed so that you can bless others. And
some of us are broken so that we can receive.
Today
I run with Jacob.
We are learning together that stones are precious things.
In regards to the anointing of stones, I cannot speak for
anyone except myself- and my brother Jacob. You are welcome to join us if you like. Our angels are here with
us- you can bring yours, too.
Yet some may see these words I write and say, who is she to speak of holy things?
No, I am not qualified. I am just another girl with a blog.
Or so I have heard.
But guess what? Dear World- call me whatever you want, the
King calls me Beloved. I AM ENOUGH. (Dear readers, say that with me- it's true for you, too!)
So for those who are always fleeing and never arriving, perhaps you should stop and anoint
the very next blessing that you lay your weary head to rest upon.
Anything can happen in this barren place. The desert is a blank
slate for God to write the story of the world.
So it’s time for Selah- a divine pause.
Some of us are in a desert wilderness, with only dust and dirt and rocks.
We are running away from our regrets with no destination in
mind, much too busy to stop and dream or pause to anoint the stones. We run
with our tears and our holy oil, clutching stolen promises to our hearts, but
we have no idea what to do with them.
And we trip over rocks because we believe God logically, but
emotionally we are fleeing blindly. When it comes down to our stony broken
hearts, fear has become the justification for control.
We grab our blessing
from Him and run like hell.
Problem is, there are angels in this place, within this
wilderness, who follow after us and redeem us when we finally stop to rest.
These angel guides are anointing our hard hearts with holy hope.
I can’t feel Him, I don’t see them, but when I close my eyes
there is a knowing.
It’s the kind of ancient wisdom that you carry not in
your head, because it does not live there, but deep in the recesses of your
soul.
He is here- they are all here, looking over my shoulder as I
write these words.
Hello, my angel guides. I welcome all of you. Read my story with me.
But first you should know, dear reader, that sometimes I hold the Bible to my heart when I meditate, to join with the broken ones in
Scripture who are also striving to produce something good.
Because Jacob and I, we believe a lie in our broken depths,
the lie that we are only as good as what we present to the world. We forget that we are most like our Creator
when we are creating, not running.
Perhaps we are creating mosaics of sanctified stones in the desert of our hearts?
We forget that we are loved not
because of what we produce, but
because of who we are.
We are image bearers who have lost our shining softness. We
have become hard as stone.
But God smiles down at us and says, “Be still, my child. It
matters not what others say. I say that you are my creation. I say you are beloved.
Stop running so I can anoint your
stony heart.”
Instead of striving,
always straining for more, what if we simply stopped and prayed?
But this is hard, because we are driven to either produce or
consume the blessings of others. It’s the programming of our broken heritage.
God just wants us to lay down upon our heavy burdens, so
that we can dream.
It’s time for Selah- a divine pause.
We cannot know how deeply we are loved until we stop running,
lay still and close our eyes. Only then can we see.
And perhaps this small and insignificant gift of writing
that I bring looks like nothing more than a plain, hard stone. Which it was,
when I first lay my head down on it to recover. To rebel. To fight. To strive.
But
this hard stone, it’s becoming sanctified.
And the angels are all watching in wonder. They gather
around and glow with anticipation, pouring holy oil over the daily labor of
these work-worn hands.
Did you know you have crowds of angels who follow you
everywhere? They are your biggest fans.
They minister to you when you are sad, they celebrate with
you when you are happy, they stand with you when you are brave. They follow fast
behind you when you run. They anoint you when you become hard.
Jacob and I, we have known what it means to lay down and
curl into a ball and try to become like a stone- cold, heavy, lifeless.
When you rightfully run from who you’ve been, without a
doubt your demons will pursue. But you
cannot stay, because what once served you is now becoming toxic.
What
you once loved
is
now contaminated with grief,
so
it’s time to run away.
Thankfully, your angel guides are running, too.
They read with us here, leaning in closer to see Genesis 28:
5 So
Isaac sent Jacob away.
This is how this
chapter begins- with a hard farewell.
Jacob had a stolen gift- a blessing and a promise, a
confiscated inheritance. He took off running with it, because it was not
supposed to belong to him. He ran like his life depended on it- which it did.
And he didn’t look back.
Jacob was running away from his brother, whom he hurt in
order to be blessed.
This is what happened to our world when man rebelled against
God- blessings became entangled with curses, fragments of good and bad all
mixed together.
“God, what am I doing? Where am I going? What have I done?”
There are at least a few of us out here in the wilderness
who ask this question. And I am not alone. I run alongside Jacob, that blessed
thief who would someday return to be the leader of his people.
But first he had to cease striving, lay down and surrender
to rest. He could not dream until he was completely still in body, mind and
soul.
10 Meanwhile, Jacob left Beersheba
and traveled toward Haran. 11 At
sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the
night. Jacob found a stone to rest his head against and lay down to sleep.
Regret warps our judgement- rocks are mistaken for something
soft and light. We turn to comfort from the wrong things.
But it’s OK, that’s normal, so God makes room for this
mix-up, and his angels gather around to see what happens next.
And
maybe we know
exactly what we are running from,
but are not sure
what
we are running to.
I’m certain Jacob cried himself to sleep that night. Because
when we finally stop running, our emotions catch up to us. That stone was covered
with his tears.
Fear, regret, hope, desire. We run away from failure headlong
into a dream.
As we lay down in the hard place, God reaches down to raise
our thoughts higher, to rise above the sorrow.
12 As
Jacob slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven.
And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway.
Ah, I told you there were angels here. Close your eyes and
see for yourself.
Disturbing
wonder is the catalyst
for
spiritual awakening.
God saves His best revelations for our worst moments.
When our minds settle down onto rock bottom, God turns that hard
place into a foundation for building a
new dream in our heart.
13 At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, “I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants.
The first thing we must do while we dream is to look up. Most people go through this life without ever looking up. Even in their dreams, their heads are down.
The hard ground we are quitting on, that is the place of revelation.
Everything serves a dual purpose on this journey- it is both a physical act and
a poetic metaphor.
And the duality is that our dream is
about to become a reality, and the plain hard stones of our past are about to
be sanctified and multiplied.
14 Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions—to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.
What do you dream when your head hits the pillow?
Do the desires of your heart look like victory for the
entire world?
Raise your thoughts higher- look up.
There
is abundance in this place.
The angels gather around you now as you read these words,
enraptured with your response.
15 What’s
more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will
bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving
you everything I have promised you.”
Ah, but God, it is so hard to believe a promise that we don’t
feel deep down in the depth of our being.
To believe something as great as that requires a releasing
of the lies we comfort ourselves with, the stones that we pretend are pillows.
We
are shedding something that is precious because we are growing up.
And as the sun rises, it dawns on us that the ones we are fleeing from are not our
enemies at all, but wounded prisoners of war.
16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!”
The first thing we must do before we even open our eyes in
the morning is remember our dreams. The ones we have carried in our heart since
we were small. If we do this, then when
we look around we will be filled with awestruck wonder at the simplest of
things- like stones.
And yet, seeing the promises of God is also a bit like
looking at a tidal wave which is headed straight for you, right where you stand in the dry desert. His blessings can be daunting and overwhelming.
They will crash over you wave after wave, so it’s best to be
prepared. Start small- simply admit you are standing on hard and holy ground.
Name that desert place of dreams- call it Divine.
17 But he
was also afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! It is none other than
the house of God, the very gateway to heaven!”
We have suppressed our emotions for so long that the very
rocks within us cry out to be sanctified.
All
can be made holy if we allow it.
Remember that angels follow you everywhere, crowds of them,
enraptured with your every dream.
How much does God love you- don’t you know? It’s a tidal
wave of blessing.
Do not let emotions
get in the way of this awakening, rather let them serve it. Seek to know
that the Redeemer of stony hearts is the One who loves you forever and always
into eternity.
18 The next morning Jacob got up very early. He took the stone he had rested his head against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it.
What if everything we did in the next 24 hours was holy?
What if every word and act and thought was sanctified today?
This is the moment for Selah- a divine pause.
Stop
running and pick up a stone.
Anoint
it, here and now.
Don’t
hesitate.
If you don’t have holy oil, simply use your tears. It’s all the
same, really.
19 He
named that place Bethel (which means “house of God”).
And we will finally admit that rocks
make terrible pillows because they bring no comfort at all. Those hard and heavy things we have grown used to, like fear
and anger, anxiety and grief.
But
when sanctified, these hard and heavy things can become holy relics of
surrender.
We will forget our pain when our hands touch the sky in
praise.
The house of God is built upon the hard cold stone inside of
you, and the cracks in your walls of certainty let the light in.
It’s ok to admit that- the angels understand. They will
ascend and descend upon all of it.
20 Then Jacob made this vow: “If God will indeed be with me and protect me on this journey, and if he will provide me with food and clothing,21 and if I return safely to my father’s home, then the Lord will certainly be my God.
And so we hope to return again to those wounded prisoners of
war who we are fleeing from today. We hope to see these stones again. We trust
God with the outcome.
What if we surrendered all the heavy things that weigh us
down? What if the things in the margins
were really the most important pieces to release?
If the hard stones of
regret we lay our heads upon can become the foundation for our dreams, then perhaps there is not as much grief as we
thought.
To surrender, simply anoint your past with honor and
dignity, pouring recognition and compassion upon it. Then leave it behind you,
to stand there as a testament of what you once were.
Keep walking, but leave the stones behind. They are all anointed- you can trust that they will be ok. That holy place will still be
there when you return someday.
And you will return- although you don’t know when, because
that is not part of the dream.
But for now, it’s best to leave the hard things. Bring only
the dream which was built upon the bedrock of surrender.
Compartmentalize
that which no longer serves you- sanctify the past and lay it down.
Move through the rest of your life trailing the angels of
your dreams instead.
Children remember dreams better than adults, so be childlike
when you run to Him.
Now take a moment to say goodbye to the regret of the past. Say goodbye.
Here in the wilderness of meditation, find a stone and
sanctify it. Dear reader, what is the stone of regret that you need to leave
behind?
22 And
this memorial pillar I have set up will become a place for worshiping God, and
I will present to God a tenth of everything he gives me.”
The next thing to do is worship- this is the only way to
survive now.
Worship like your
life depends on it- because it does.
We are all spiritual beings in a physical temple, and
worship is an act that brings unity to both sides of our composition, allowing
them to work together for the same purpose.
Worship is the
integrity of body, mind and soul.
And like Jacob, give at least ten percent of your thoughts
to the dream in your heart- that’s a window of opportunity for your angels to
gather around.
Be mindful of where you have come from, and never forget the
lessons of the holy stones you left behind. Mindfulness brings balance.
The
emotions should serve the spirit. Your vision should be supported by them.
Arise and go to Bethel- the house of God. This is not a
church I speak of, but a community. A safe place to belong, where you can go
to love and be loved, where you can anoint the stones of regret and leave them far
behind.
Do you ever ask yourself what you will be doing a thousand
years from now? For we are all eternal beings, every one of us. We all have a
story to tell that never ends.
And when I read about Jacob I realize that All. The. Things. in our story can be holy.
Even the precious stones beneath our weary head.
The angels are waiting eagerly to see what happens next-
they are the readers of your every word.
They are hangers-on of your every surrender.
Because Bethel is our city- our dreams belong in the House
of God. Here the hard places beneath our heads will become holy and shining, a
testament to our victory.
Yet who am I to speak of holy things? I am not qualified.
I am just another girl with a blog. Or so I have heard.
Call me whatever you want, because my King calls me Beloved. We are all His beloved- say it with me:
I AM ENOUGH.
I AM ENOUGH.
Please realize that some of you are blessed so that you can
bless others. And some of us are broken so that we can receive.
Today
I run with Jacob.
We are learning together that stones are holy dreams.
If we are always fleeing and never arriving, we need to stop
and anoint the very next blessing that we lay our heavy heads to rest upon.
It’s time for Selah- a divine pause.
And
after I am done sanctifying my past,
I
will walk away like my brother Jacob,
and
I will dream like him, too.
Our angels are trailing close behind us, reading every word
of our story.
Do you see them? They are here with us both. They are our biggest fans.
When I walk away from
the hard place, I take a whole crowd of angels with me. They understand my
victory- they applaud my courage. The stone I leave behind me is sanctified
and waiting with honor for my return someday.
Dear reader, today I pray that you will find a moment to close
your own eyes, rest your head and dream. And when you wake, anoint the heavy
place in your heart and then set it down away from you. Leave your regret
behind you for another day, because too much grief is toxic to your soul.
Feel how much lighter
you are after surrendering the hard things- you can run so much faster.
Now go, move forward into the rest of your life, trailing
the angels of your dreams behind you everywhere you go. Run towards the Creator, the Author of your story.
And may all beings be peaceful and happy.
Amen and amen.
Amen and amen.
~*~
With
deepest gratitude
for my tiny tribe of readers-
Rebecca
