We speak of our "companions for the journey" usually in terms of our friends who travel life's pilgrimage with us. But today we are reminded again that our companions include those who have gone before us as well. If you think about this, it is true of other "travel guides" too. Some person (or maybe a team) visits... say Paris... and scout out the city, then they tell us all about it in "Paris: A Travel Guide", which we pay $19.95 to obtain before our vacation.
Our Bible travel guide is the same. Many people have taken life's pilgrimage before us and we have lots to learn about our journey from them. This week we will focus on the Ancient Patriarchs and their pilgrimages. Today we study Jacob who has a dream about God and wakes to realize that God was present with him as he slept right there on the ground that night. This happened right after Jacob took Esau's birthright and fled, so I'm pretty certain it was a scary time for him.
In our reflection on p.22, we are to think about the various times in our lives... can we think back about them and recognize God's presence even though we were unaware of it at the time?
I guess we can, because I just now thought about a time in my life during my college years when Dad was suffering from lung cancer - and suffering from all the treatments for lung cancer at the time. I spent a lot of time sitting in hospital waiting rooms waiting on him, and I remember (and still think of) hospital waiting rooms as desolate places devoid of any real hope. (I'll make an exception for waiting rooms in the maternity ward.) Anyway, as I just remembered this time, I visualized myself in the waiting room, not from my point of view, but viewed from a distance, and there I could see myself sitting, being the TARGET of streams of prayers coming from all my college friends far away.
How's that for powerful?? Brought to us by a few moments of reflection on Jacob's dream.
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