“Then Jacob went on his journey…”
First, Jacob was a man on the run; he was running for his life when he met God at Bethel. After his encounter with God, and seeing the angelic vision, Jacob became a new man. Now he wasn’t running anymore; he was walking with the Lord.
I believe this was the moment of conversion for Jacob. He had heard many stories about God from his father Isaac and probably from Abraham too; but then at Bethel (which incidentally means “House of God”), he heard God telling him:
“I am with you.”
For this reason we can wake up each morning and continue with this daily struggle some people call “life.” Knowing that Jesus is leading the way, is more than enough to instill the confidence necessary to keep on living and walking with God.
My old pastor Eugenio Gonzalez used to say that the Christian life is not hard…it’s impossible. The way is narrow, our strength is limited and trials and temptations abound. Nevertheless the Holy Spirit empowers us and the Bible’s promises encourage us to never give up.
We can walk with the Lord today, because the Lord walks with us every day. He walks ahead of us, trailblazing the path that we must follow and He walks in us, for he lives in us; in fact, one can say that we are his feet. The church is the body of Christ and wherever the Head (which is Christ) goes, the feet must follow in obedience to Jesus.
Let us live, love and walk in Christ and Christ will live in us, love through us and walk with us in this world and forever.
A. G.
