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. ¹² As he 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.

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. 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. 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.”

¹⁶ Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” 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!”

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. ¹⁹ He named that place Bethel (which means “house of God”), although it was previously called Luz.

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. 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.”

Genesis 28:10-22

Dear God, it stuns me that Jacob would see what he saw and then still have the audacity to make a deal with you. “If God will indeed be with me…then the Lord will certainly be my God.” It seems like the pledging of a tenth of everything should have been part of the deal from this point forward, not something to be negotiated.

With that being said, how many times do I negotiate with you? Do I withhold my worship when I am hurting? Do I turn my back on you when I think you are working too slowly and it’s time to get things done? It’s always been so easy for me to be critical of Jacob, but I guess there are two things about him that can encourage me. First, I’m probably more like him than I want to admit, and, second, if your mercy can extend to him then it can extend to me too.

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, I am not making anything an obstacle to me worshipping you today. That’s what Jacob was doing. Even after his vision, he needed an excuse to not worship you. He wasn’t ready. I want to be ready. I want to be your worshipper, your ambassador, and your child. Thank you for giving me that opportunity through Jesus.

I pray all of this in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, my Triune God,

Amen