Have you ever found yourself flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, wondering how on earth you got here?
Maybe your plans fell apart, a relationship ended, a door slammed shut, or life just drifted off course. You’re not where you thought you’d be—and you don’t quite know where you’re going next.
That’s where Jacob was in Genesis 28.
He wasn’t on a spiritual retreat. He was on the run. His family was fractured, his brother wanted to kill him, and he was sleeping under the stars with a rock for a pillow. Not exactly the highlight reel moment of his life.
And that’s when the Lord showed up in Genesis 28:10-22.
10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it stood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Genesis 28:10-22, New International Version
16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” 17 He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”
18 Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. 19 He called that place Bethel, though the city used to be called Luz.
20 Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will watch over me on this journey I am taking and will give me food to eat and clothes to wear 21 so that I return safely to my father’s household, then the Lord[d] will be my God 22 and this stone that I have set up as a pillar will be God’s house, and of all that you give me I will give you a tenth.”
As Jacob slept, he had a dream in which a ladder reached from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending on it. At the top stood the Lord Himself, declaring promises that must’ve sounded too good to be true for a man like Jacob: “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go…” (verse 15).
Imagine that: the Lord breaking into Jacob’s wilderness moment not with judgment, but with grace. Not with a scolding, but with a promise.
Jacob had done nothing to deserve it. But that’s the beauty of grace: it shows up in the middle of our mess, not after we’ve cleaned it up.
When Jacob woke up, he said something that still gives me chills: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” (verse 16).
He didn’t find God; God found him. And suddenly, that empty patch of desert became Bethel, “the house of God.”
It’s funny how often the Lord does His best work in places we’d never choose:
- The job you didn’t want.
- The town you didn’t plan to move to.
- The diagnosis you didn’t see coming.
- Those “middle of nowhere” places often become holy ground when we open our eyes to His presence.
Let’s be real here: most of us don’t have dreams about angelic staircases. But the message of Jacob’s night in the desert still speaks loud and clear today: the Lord meets us where we are, not where we wish we were.
You may be wrestling with regret, exhaustion, or uncertainty about your future. Maybe you’re between jobs, between relationships, between what was and what will be. But the God of Jacob still whispers, “I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go.”
Our job? To wake up to that truth—to stop assuming our Lord only lives in the “holy” places, and start recognizing His presence in the everyday spaces:
- In the carpool line.
- In the cubicle.
- In the hospital waiting room.
- In the middle of the night, when your mind won’t shut off.
Everywhere can be Bethel when you realize He is already there.
Jacob left that place with a new awareness and a new vow: If God is with me… then He will be my God.
That’s the turning point for all of us. The moment when faith stops being something we inherited and starts being something we own.
So if you’re in a season that feels like “the middle of nowhere,” take heart. The Lord builds ladders in deserts, whispers in the dark, and turns rocks into pillows of promise.
The Lord is in this place.
Even if you didn’t know it.
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