Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it!”  And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” (Genesis 28: 16,17) 

Jacob is having a terrible week.

Not the sort of week fixed by a long walk, a takeaway, or a polite email saying, “Let’s put this behind us.” This is the kind of week that makes a person consider changing his name, burning the evidence, and catching the first cart out of town. Which, more or less, is what Jacob does.

He has deceived his father. He has played his brother, Esau. He has taken the birthright and then the blessing Esau believed were his. Jacob has been sharp, calculating, and hungry for the future. He has used people as stepping-stones. Now the bill has come due. Esau is furious, and Jacob is running before blood is spilled.

He leaves Beer-sheba for Haran, more than 700 kilometres away. Behind him are home, family, familiar fields, and whatever safety he once mistook for permanence. Ahead is a hard road and an uncertain welcome. One night, worn through and alone in open country, he lies down. He puts a stone beneath his head.

A stone for a pillow. Scripture does not tidy that detail up.

This is not a peaceful retreat. This is a man sleeping rough, exposed to cold, dark, animals, and the consequences of his own choices.

Then he dreams.

He sees a stairway planted on earth and reaching into heaven. God’s messengers go up and down on it. And God speaks: the old promise to Abraham is still alive: land, descendants, a future, blessing. But the heart of it is simpler and more astonishing:

“I am with you. I will watch over you wherever you go. I will not leave you.”

Jacob wakes rattled.

“Surely the Lord is in this place,” he says, “and I did not know it.”

It is one of Scripture’s great sentences because it holds wonder and shame together. God was here? Here, in this scrubby nowhere? In the dark? On the road? With me, after all I have done?

Jacob calls the place Bethel: House of God. Yet it is not a church, temple, or carefully arranged retreat, complete with good music and decent coffee. It is bare ground where a frightened man sleeps with his head on a rock.

And that is where God meets him.

It might seem neater if Jacob encountered God after apologizing to Esau, making restitution, and becoming less manipulative. But God comes while Jacob is still running; while fear is in his throat and the wreckage of his decisions is somewhere behind him on the road.

That does not make his actions harmless. They matter. Jacob will carry their consequences. His story is not God saying, “Never mind, everybody slips up.” He will be humbled, wounded, changed, and eventually reconciled with Esau.

Grace is not denial. It is God refusing to abandon us in the middle of the truth.

God does not wait for Jacob to become worthy.

That is good news for Jacob, which means it is good news for us. Most of us carry things we would rather not pin to a church noticeboard: words we cannot take back, people we hurt, decisions made out of pride, panic, loneliness, or the need to stay in control.

Sometimes we run from another person. Sometimes from a problem. Sometimes, if we are honest, from our own reflection. We keep busy. We scroll. We work late. We watch one more episode. We fill every quiet patch with noise because silence has a way of telling the truth.

Still, God has a habit of meeting people in places they did not plan to be.

There are places where we expect God: church, for one. Thank God for church. We need rooms where we can sing, pray, grieve, laugh, and be reminded that our lives are larger than our fear and our inboxes.

We need baptismal water and communion bread. We need the awkward, holy business of sitting beside people we may not have chosen and discovering that they, too, are loved by God. We need to hear, “Peace be with you,” especially when peace seems to belong to other people.

But God is not locked in the sanctuary from Monday to Saturday, waiting for someone to turn the key on Sunday.

God is in the hospital waiting room, under fluorescent lights, while the vending machine hums and someone’s name is called. God is in the grocery store when you are adding the cost of everything in the cart. God is in the school corridor after a hard day, in the car after an argument, in the long-term care home, the factory floor, the airport, the bus stop, and the kitchen sink piled with dishes.

God is present when you are driving somewhere you dread.

God is present when you sit beside someone who is dying.

God is present when you fold laundry, bone-tired, wondering whether your life will ever feel less heavy.

God is present when laughter catches you by surprise and you cannot speak.

God is present in the mess.

That does not mean every hard thing is secretly good. It does not mean God sends illness, betrayal, loss, or tragedy to teach a lesson. Pain is pain. Grief is grief. Sometimes the most faithful prayer is, “This is awful, and I don’t understand.”

But suffering does not get the final word. Even where we feel abandoned, God is nearer than we know.

Psalm 139 asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?”

If I rise to heaven, you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I travel to the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me.

There is nowhere we can go where God is not already present.

That can comfort us. It can also make us uneasy. The psalm says, “You hem me in, behind and before.” There is a gritty edge to that image: surrounded, even besieged. But not by enemies, anxiety, or the constant demand to keep up. We are surrounded by God’s attentive love.

God is behind you, holding the story you have lived.

God is before you, already present in the future you cannot see.

God is beside you in the hour you are trying to survive.

God is beneath you when you hit the ground.

This is not a promise that life will go as we want. Jacob’s life doesn’t. It’s just the promise that we will not face it alone.

Jacob does not say, “Surely the Lord is here, and I recognized him immediately because I am spiritually alert.” He says, “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it.”

That’s how it happens, right?. We’re too sad, angry, overwhelmed, or numb to notice God in the moment. Later, looking back, we see a thread of mercy. Someone called at the right time. A stranger was kind. We found courage for one more step. We survived what we thought would finish us.

God’s presence is not always dramatic. No angels, ladders, thunder, or voice from heaven. Sometimes it looks like a casserole at the door, a text message, a cup of tea, or a friend who sits quietly and doesn’t try to fix you.

Sometimes it’s just that you got out of bed.

Grace often arrives in ordinary clothes.

Jacob takes the stone from beneath his head and sets it up as a memorial. Not because God lives only in that spot, but because people forget. We forget where we were carried. We forget small mercies. We forget God’s faithfulness when fear crowds everything else.

So we may need our own memorials. At day’s end, we might ask:

• Where did I notice grace today?

• Who showed me kindness?

• What am I carrying that I need to tell God?

• Where might God have been present, even if I missed it?

You do not need a perfect prayer routine, scented candles, a leather-bound journal, or mastery of ancient spiritual disciplines; though for real, use whatever helps. You can sit for a few minutes and say, “God, here I am.”

Tell God you are tired, angry, worried about money, health, children, marriage, parents, work, or the world. God already knows. Yet speaking the truth before the One who does not turn away can begin to heal us.

Paul says that when we cry, “Abba, Father,” God’s Spirit is already at work within us. Even our longing for God can be a sign of God’s nearness.

We bear a “maker’s mark” . Not as a badge of superiority or a weapon against those outside the church, but in the slow, stubborn ways we begin to resemble Jesus: choosing mercy over cruelty; apologizing; forgiving; welcoming the pushed-aside; telling the truth; sharing what we have; showing up again.

That is the family resemblance.

God is in the sanctuary. God is also in the supermarket, the parking lot, the hospital, the kitchen, and the middle of a mess. God is on the road with Jacob. God is on the road with us.

And sometimes, when we least expect it, we wake up and realize:

Surely the Lord is in this place.

And we did not know it.

Blessings today, my dear Bethel Friends, and remember you are loved.

~Rev. Lynne

(Audio File: https://audio.com/lynne-gardiner/audio/office-hours-where-you-least-expect-it-1)