It was one of those days.
Besides being in the midst of the COVID pandemic,
everything I touched seemed to go bad. I was tired,
and I was more than a little bit grumpy. The kicker,
however, was when I got to the checkout counter at
the local grocery store, mask and gloves intact,
with two heaping carts, and… No credit card! Please
understand that in those days, I only went to the
store when I absolutely had to, I spent as little
time as possible there, and then I would return home
to wash my clothing, take a shower and disinfected
the seats of my car. Now I was going to have to make
a double trip in my “COVID” clothing; I was going to
have to go into the house “dirty”, find a credit
card, and then re-enter that “dirty” zone of the
grocery store to pay for my goods. Oh God, where are
You?
That’s when a license
plate parked on the side of the road caught my
attention: PADRE4U. Wait. Padre. That’s Spanish for
“Father”…God was using that license plate to speak
to me, to remind me that He was right there, always
for me, always with me!
I’ve heard so many stories
like this. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How
often does God make Himself known to us? The Bible
tells us that He never leaves us or forsakes us:
“For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of
you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
(Deuteronomy 31:6b NLT); yet when we are in the
midst of “stuff”, this promise is hard to remember.
Had I not looked up at
just the right moment, however, I would have missed
that license plate. How often when I’m feeling low
does God reveal Himself to me, but I miss it? What
about the beautiful sunrise this morning? God’s
artistic handiwork was all over that one; but I was
so focused on how tired I was and how much I didn’t
want to go out for groceries that I didn’t recognize
God’s hand. Then there was the nickel on the
pavement just beside my car, perfectly visible when
I opened my car door. Weren’t the words, “In God we
trust” staring right up at me? Did I even take the
time to realize God was trying to get my attention?
To remind me that He was there amidst my “stuff”?
Genesis 28:10-22
records a beautiful story. After participating in a
vicious scheme of deceit to steal his brother’s
blessing, Jacob is fleeing for his life. How low he
must have felt! Yet despite Jacob’s sin, God looked
down from Heaven and love Jacob enough to send him a
dream: “As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that
reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the
angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the
top of the stairway stood the Lord, and he said, ‘I
am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham,
and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you
are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you
and your descendants.’” (Genesis 28:12-13 NLT).
Jacob took great comfort from this dream. He was so
touched that the next morning, he “…got up very
early. He took the stone he had rested his head
against, and he set it upright as a memorial pillar.
Then he poured olive oil over it. He named that
place Bethel (which means ‘house of God’), although
it was previously called Luz.” (Vs. 18-19 NLT).
Fast forward 20+ years.
Jacob has returned to Canaan a rich man, with flocks
and herds and wives and sons; nonetheless, it is a
low time in his life for his sons have just
completely annihilated an entire city (see
Gen. 34).
God appears to Jacob another time: “Then God said to
Jacob, ‘Get ready and move to Bethel and settle
there. Build an altar there to the God who appeared
to you when you fled from your brother,
Esau.’” (Genesis 35:1 NLT).
Why did God want Jacob to
return to Bethel of all places? Because He wanted
Jacob to remember… He wanted him to remember how He
reaches out to us when we are in our lowest moments.
He wanted Jacob to remember how He loves us despite
our sin. Jacob’s response? Once again, he “… set up
a stone pillar to mark the place where God had
spoken to him. Then he poured wine over it as an
offering to God and anointed the pillar with olive
oil.” (Genesis 35:14 NLT)
The next time you are
caught up in a bunch of “stuff”, problems that keep
you from seeing God around you, I challenge each one
of you today to do two things:
1. Keep on the watch for
these little signs of God’s love for you. They are
NOT there by accident. They are placed there by a
loving Heavenly Father Who wants to remind you that
He is there, that you can put your trust in Him.
2. Record these incidences
in some way. Then, the next time you are feeling
down, reread the signs of God’s love. Revisit the
place where He reached out to you. Be like Jacob and
return to your “Bethel”.
God loves you, friends!
“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls
us his children, and that is what we are!” (John
3:1a NLT). And He loves you enough to want you to
find Him in the midst of your difficulties. Watch
for Him today.
Who knows? Maybe you’ll
see a license plate that reads PAPA4U!
In His love,
Lyn
Lynona Gordon Chaffart,
Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two adult
boys, Author -- "Aboard God's Train -- A Journey
With God Through the Valley of Cancer", Author and
Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet
newsletter, Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to
Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, The
Illustrator, a four-times-a-week internet
newsletter, and the Sermon Illustrator website,
all with Answers2Prayer Ministries.