Last night as I dreamed, my dream was so nebulous as I was trying to pinpoint and explain God in a sentence and each effort produced a vacuum of empty space where God was not. Every phrase was like mist dissipating revealing nothingness. This morning my heart felt so heavy. Reading Genesis 35 added to the heaviness; living in this time when our hearts are so insistent on our truth left me feeling hopeless. I have spent my whole life trying to understand my truth so I can function in this world that is so complex who can understand it?

God didn’t tell Shechem to rape Dinah. God didn’t tell Simeon and Levi to plot so they could weaken and then kill all the men from that city in vengeance. God didn’t tell Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn son to sleep with his father’s concubine, Bilhah, the mother of his stepbrothers Dan and Naphtali. God doesn’t tell us to do the things that cause such grievous harm to ourselves and others.

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” v. 1. Jacob obeyed what God did tell him. So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem. Then they set out, and the terror of God fell on the towns all around them so that no one pursued them. v. 2-5.

In this Chapter Rachel dies after giving birth to her 2nd son, Benjamin. After Jacob went home to his father Isaac, Isaac dies and Esau and Jacob bury him. Life goes on. Consequences follow Reuben, Simeon and Levi but not just them, everyone around them who were impacted.

In my dream last night I couldn’t quantify God in a sentence. In prayer this morning, I shared my helplessness in trusting myself; in my fears that allow darkness to seep in so I can’t see anything but the darkness. His answer to me… Whatever is lovely and good think on those things. Dwell on My love and healing. Give thanks and in thanks receive joy. Giving thanks your heart and eyes open to My Presence and love flowing within you. Keep your eyes and heart turned to Me and all I am doing. I am working for your good.

Jacob knew it was God who answered him in the day of his distress and was with him wherever he went. I’m learning with God’s help that I need Him in this world and He is so patient with me. He is showing me what is good and lovely and it is Him and all He made and is doing in this world that we can’t see without His help. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33.

He is working for our good because He cares for us. The problems of this world that we create and live in are temporary. God and His love for us is eternal. When I let my heart dwell on that truth, I find peace and not just for me personally but for everyone. I can’t define God or limit Him to a declarative sentence and how foolish to try as He showed me in that dream that was filled with nebulous nothingness. Ask now about the former days, long before your time, from the day God created human beings on the earth; ask from one end of the heavens to the other. Has anything so great as this ever happened, or has anything like it ever been heard of? Has any other people heard the voice of God speaking out of fire, as you have and lived? Has any other god tried to take for himself one nation out of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, or by great and awesome deeds, like all the things the Lord your God did for you in Egypt before your very eyes? You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other. Deuteronomy 4:32-35.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:1-5. That life was the light of all mankind…the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. How thankful I am for that love, that light that sweeps away darkness. I will spend all of eternity living to know that love.