Friday, July 18, 2008

For Sunday, July 20 - Moving to Higher Ground


Genesis 28:10-22

The team of 12 CHBCers going to El Salvador leaves on Sunday morning about 10:30. They'll get into Santa Ana, after the flight and drive, by about 11 that night. It will be a long day of travel. By the time they get back, it will all have seemed like a dream. You've had trips like that, haven't you? You go through a grand adventure, and the next thing you know, it's over and feels like it never happened - or was just a dream.
I had a dream this week just before we came back from our trip to California for college orientation. In my dream, I came back to work and instantly had a memorial service to perform (it wasn't anyone in the church, in case you're worried it was you). I got to the memorial service and I wasn't dressed for it, I didn't have anything prepared to say, and I just couldn't understand how I had to do this so soon after vacation. Such are the warped nightmares of pastors. I woke up about 5 AM in the middle of the dream and then every time I went back to sleep it started again - this went on for about 2 hours until I got up. Thankfully, no one has died this week. Yet.
Jacob is one strange guy in the scriptures. He's sort of a creep for much of his life. Manipulative and selfish; always working on an angle to get what he wants. And yet God chooses him to be one of the key fathers of the People of Israel. Go figure. Or maybe that's the point. God chooses who he wants to choose and he can change any garden-variety creep he wants. In the Genesis 28 story, Jacob has this amazing dream (how does he manage to sleep with a rock as a pillow?) - and the focal point of the dream is a ladder that connects heaven and earth. Apparently these were the angels who didn't yet have their wings so they needed a ladder to go up and down. Or maybe it's a spiritual point God is making to Jacob! Perhaps the point is that... oh wait! I don't want to give that away. Come to worship for my 2-cent's worth.
Your ideas? - Curtis