On the Run with the Trickster

A First-Person Reflection on Jacob’s Dream — Genesis 28:10–19a

Rev. Dr. R. Timothy Meadows

I have lived and struggled with this name for too long. It has been a burden. Jacob — the trickster, the younger of my parents’ twins. Favored by my mother, not my father. Hated, likely, by my brother, from whom I talked my way into the family birthright. You know my story. Like most everyone in my family, and in my time, you probably hold an opinion of me that is something less than favorable. I am the perfect example of what you do not want to become. Which is exactly what makes my story about God’s dream so remarkable.

I was on the run — trying to outlast my brother’s fury, at my mother’s suggestion. Good ole mom. Seems she was the one who got me into this mess in the first place. Nevertheless, I was on the run, making my way toward the city of Haran.

I grew weary and found a good place to camp for the night, and a good stone on which to lay my head. I settled in, and then I began to see it: a stairway to heaven. A strange, corkscrewing kind of ladder, with angels moving up and down it with ease. I might have dismissed the whole thing as the result of too much goat, too late at night — except for what happened next.

An ascending angel caught my eye. As it reached the top of the staircase, a brilliant light broke open, and out of that light stepped a figure. I saw the Lord. And then I heard a voice, booming, confirming what my eyes had already told me. That voice began to speak words I never thought I’d hear. In the middle of my running away, the God of my fathers — my God — promised to make me a great nation. Before I could ask if God knew who exactly he was working with, God kept going: promises of protection, of safety, of a watchful eye kept on me wherever I went.

God would not give up on me. That was the heart of it. I could still become a blessing to others, no matter what I had already done. That was the hope this dream handed me.

When I woke, I knew I had been visited by God, and I named that place near Luz “the house of God.” I took the stone that had been my pillow and set it up as a memorial. But I was still shaken, still half-convinced this was indigestion dressed up as revelation — which is why the promise I made that morning came out so weak. It began with the word “if.” I hedged my bets against the very possibility that God had actually spoken to me.

Looking back now, I think I understand a few things.

I understand that God’s presence often comes to us in these ordinary, harried, on-the-run kinds of moments. We are so unaware of how close God already is. We are so unaware that when we feel most alone is often exactly when God is nearest.

I understand that God’s promise is always unconditional — that God wants to bless us even when all we can manage is, “I will follow you… if.”

I understand that what matters is not so much what I dream, but what God dreams for me.

I understand that God’s desire to bless and protect me was never for my sake alone. It was so that I could become a blessing and a protection to others. The gift was never mine to keep — only mine to carry forward.

And I understand that more than a stone memorial to mark the moment, what God actually wanted from me was a life well lived.

So — what about you?

What is God promising you in your dreams? How are you answering? And how might the promises God gives you in the night become, in the light of day, a blessing to someone else?

May God grant us the grace to dream boldly, and to share widely, the gifts God promises us in our dreams.

Amen.

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