jacob's dream

After much encouragement from numerous friends, I have been reading "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp. [Do yourself a favor and start it today]

Let me say that it has been a perfect time for me to be immersed in this book. I'm taking it a little slower than most books I read and have re-read chapters and have gone over my highlights many times over.

Something that was mentioned briefly in chapter 4 has kept me coming back for more. In fact, I went on my own personal search of the significance of this Bible story in my life, and why it has haunted me for weeks. Ann Voskamp said this, "It's not the gifts that fulfill, but the holiness of the space. The God in it... This is supreme gift, time, God Himself framed in moment. I hardly breathe... and time is only of the essence, because time is the essence of God, I AM. This I need to consecrate: time. Make every moment a cathedral giving glory..."

She references Genesis 28, where Jacob has just woken up from his dream of ladders and angels and then states in verse 16, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”

Unaware?

Is it possible that I could utter a similiar phrase today?

Am I unaware of my Almighty God standing before me? Breathing on me? Dreaming over me? Am I too preoccupied, too absorbed, too engrossed to recognize His touch?

I have started each morning with a simple prayer....

"God, let me be aware..."

The results have been life-altering.

It's interesting to me that a few chapters later we find Jacob wrestling with God so intensely that he gets injured and then renames that place "Peniel" because he encountered God face to face. Seems as though he purposed to no longer be "unaware."

I purpose that too.

To no longer be UNAWARE.

I prayed to an older song by Jason Upton this morning, "Jacob's Dream"

Try it.