Jacob, limping out of Peniel, Pt. 2

How can I enter again into my mind that day, O Lord? For now I see these things through the lens of my knowledge of you, gained since then, and so the events are always filtered through you, through your grace and mercy, through your pursuit and perseverance. Though at the time all seemed strange, imponderable, too weighted to consider, in reality these things were given not so that they would be understood but so that they would be remembered. In the moment we are generally poor interpreters of our own experiences, too prone to self-justification, to eager to explain away what demands to be examined and understood. Then, I had reasons (what a misuse of that word!) for all my emotions, a ready explanation for whatever affections I had, all designed so that I could swallow and accept about my deceptions, my lies, my sin (to call it what it is). This is the way of the heart, which cannot hates to act against itself. O Lord, have mercy on my descendants, those who will come from me, from what I have seen and done! Search them and know them, and make them known to themselves! What a mercy it is to see sin, to understand it for what it is, to test and examine our emotions, to even know that such a thing should be done! Take my thoughts captive, O Lord, to your self-revelation!

I fled in pride, captive to my heart but considering myself its master. I reigned in myself, but still a slave, for though I was determined still to create, yet I hoped for a newness. I, acting against myself, and therefore a slave to something besides myself, or a slave to the multiplicity of myself. O for an undivided heart, for the loveliness of purity! It was an interior contradiction, conflicting desires, one tired and longing, the other desperate and hard. Can you see the heart of a liar, can you understand it? It longs to be known but refuses to make itself known. It hungers for an intimacy it fears. Longing fuels half of it but fear the other half, and each emotion increases as the lies continue and deepen. Who knows where I would have ended if I had continued in this way? Dead at Esau's hand, or a hand like his? Perhaps moving from place to place, repeating the same pattern of increasing deception followed by exposure and flight?

But then you came to me, O Lord, you came to me, God of movement, God of activity, who called out in the garden when man hid! Lord, now I can see my past clearly and know how small was that thread that held me to you, the sliver of the promises, the rememberence of Abraham, those small desires buried deep! O Lord, they were tenuous, weak, barely comprehended by me, yet you are the God who carries, the God who will not break a bruised reed!

Night. I slept, my head upon a rock. I dreamt (or saw? Seeing unveiled, seeing deepened, for my eyes could not bear what was seen) of angels and heaven and the glory of God made known, inexpressible. To recount it is to give only an outline, like a profile on the side of a tent created by fire, for my eyes saw what cannot be seen, glory or light made into form, a glimpse of something shining through the world, showing the weakness of the world. It was akin to what I saw in the words of my grandfather, the two alike somehow, not really in any way except that they both called out to a part of me that was only brought alive in their presence. There were no words I could speak, and there seemed to be no time, not time stopped, just time not expressed. I heard the words, the words, O God, your words, which penetrated, showing truth, words that created a world as my words did, but a world real, a world to be touched and felt and experienced.

It was God who spoke. I will be with you and watch over you wherever you go. This was spoken to me. I suddenly possessed these words. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Lord, you spoke this! He to me, spoke words that could never be taken back, to me, Jacob, the deceiver, the twister and user of the same words, and in the glory of the moment I knew they were true, they were sure, they could not be retracted, that they would never be regretted because they were spoken by one who already knew all things, all futures, and by one who had already seen me, already known me, already chosen me by the mystery of his will and ways. O Lord, who can trace out your paths?

Morning. I woke, my head on the rock still. Then, I feared. Fear came first, visceral, immediate, then the reason for the fear filled my mind. The Lord was here! But my fear had a different taste than the fear I had felt in my dream, the fear that had brought me silent before the glory, before the light of his presence. The fear of the morning was a self-looking fear, the fear of a man who lies in the presence of one who knows him. God was there, and though the words he spoke were to remain with me, yes Lord, even now, even till today, yet in the morning as the light of the sun spilled upon me I thought only of escaping. If God was in that place, then he would see me, see me, and eventually he would know me for my every lie. He would see the secret shame of my soul, the secret fear, and I could not bear to be in his presence when he discovered me.

Fear moved me, though the memory of his words still echoed (let us all know that within moves conflicting principles) and I put the stone from my head as a memorial to that place, that place where I saw his glory. In the moment, then, I resolved to end my lies, to end my deceptions, to break clean with myself and others, that this new place I traveled to would be the place of the new Jacob, and that I would return to the house of God, to Bethel, to the stone there set, and that I would be his servant, and he my God, as he was to Isaac, as he was to Abraham. My God, those words never passed my lips, I owned him not, he who saw through me, for I could not abide there. This was my house of God, this place where he was, and I would leave him there, come back to reclaim him in my cleanness, if he would care for me. These were my thoughts, even as the words remained in me, the slow pursuit begun here, the pursuit of Jacob, the great love coming to take me, for take me he would, though not until I was stripped, broken, made bare.

I move ahead.