Bibledoorajar Explores Humility

                            "I wandered so aimless, life filled with sin
                              I wouldn't let my dear Savior in
                              then Jesus came like a stranger in the night
                              Praise the Lord, I saw the light."

                                                               Hank Williams

     At Luz (which means "light"), Jacob's eyes were opened to a greater reality. That greater reality was  that the majesty and authority of God was willing to help someone who had not merited one bit of help.   He learned a foundational lesson: that the God of the Universe seeks to relate to and provide for  earthly citizens. But there does seem to be this one requirement that repeats itself over and over and that requirement is humility. Knowledge of the Holy One who was now communicating with Jacob is based on the disclosure of his need for God. Pride in ourselves, in our abilities, will ever get us in trouble ("goes before a fall" Proverbs 16:18). Jacob was to be mightily used by God but they had to get things straight from the beginning. Jacob, though made in God's image, was not God, and Jacob had to learn that understanding Him required faith and love.  Jacob lay on the dirt of the earth and fell into a deep sleep. There probably is no greater picture of our sin than that of Jacob laying in his dusty bed in total darkness. He did not create the light that came to him; he did not create the vision that he saw. He did nothing but sleep. It was God that came with the lofty goal: spirit must overcome flesh. Those recipients of Divine favor must humble themselves in the sight of the Lord. We are but of the earth, and marred by sin.
      We know that Jacob's knowledge of God increased at Luz, for he declared surely the Lord was in that place. And he renamed the place Bethel which means "house of God" and marked the place of great import with a standing stone. And he responded to the declaration which God had made (see last week's lesson) with a declaration of his own.
 
      "If God will be with me and will guard me on this road I am traveling, giving me bread to eat and
        clothes to wear, so I return to my father's house in peace, then the Lord will be my God; and this
        stone, which I have set up as a standing-stone, will be God's house; and of everything you give
        me, I will faithfully return one-tenth to you." Genesis 28: 20-22

Faith and love mixed with appropriate awe of God can be seen clearly in his declaration. May it ever be  so with us.