“Jacob’s dream of angels on a stairway to heaven, strikes me as an appealing tale of unmerited grace. Here’s a man who has just deceived his father and cheated his brother out of an inheritance. But God’s response to finding Jacob vulnerable, sleeping all alone in open country, is not to strike him down for his sins but to give him a blessing.

Jacob wakes from his dream in awe, exclaiming, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!’ . . . Jacob’s exclamation is one that remains with me, a reminder that God can choose to dwell everywhere and anywhere we go.

One morning this past spring I noticed a young couple with an infant at an airport departure gate. The baby was staring intently at other people, and as soon as he recognized a human face, no matter whose it was, no matter if it was young or old, pretty or ugly, bored or happy or worried-looking, he would respond with absolute delight.

It was beautiful to see. Our drab departure gate had become the gate of heaven. And as I watched that baby play with any adult who would allow it, I felt as awe-struck as Jacob, because I realized that this is how God looks at us, staring into our faces in order to be delighted, to see the creature he made and called good, along with the rest of creation. And, as Psalm 139 puts it, darkness is as nothing to God, who can look right through whatever evil we’ve done in our lives to the creature made in the divine image.” (Excerpted from Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, by Kathleen Norris)

Watch for glimpses of unexpected grace in your days this week. They are there. They are for you and for all of us together.

- Pastor Lamont