Who are we travelling with?
Stand at the arrivals or departures areas at an airport for a while, and you will see that journeys are not only about place, they are about people. People we have to leave, people we are travelling to. People whose lives have changed while we have gone, and the changes in our lives since we saw them last.
Sometimes it is the people in our lives that trigger our travels. That was the case for Jacob, Abraham's grandson, whose relationship with his brother Esau eventually drove him away.
Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are approaching, then I will kill my brother Jacob."
But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, "Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran." Genesis 27: 41-43
We hear Esau's thoughts but nothing from Jacob. Was he relieved to be getting away from his brother at last? Was he nervous of what he might find at his uncle's home, or excited by a new opportunity?
On the first night of Jacob's journey, while he sleeps, he has his famous dream of a ladder reaching to heaven with angels ascending and descending it.
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it!"
Genesis 28: 16
Was this perhaps the moment that Jacob began to grow up? He has left behind the security of his family and his childhood, and it is on his journey that he meets God for himself, and realises that God is not just the God of his grandfather Abraham or his father Isaac- but is there for him too.
Psalm 139 reminds us of this:
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
Sometimes it is the people in our lives that trigger our travels. That was the case for Jacob, Abraham's grandson, whose relationship with his brother Esau eventually drove him away.
Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, "The days of mourning for my father are approaching, then I will kill my brother Jacob."
But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah; so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, "Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran." Genesis 27: 41-43
We hear Esau's thoughts but nothing from Jacob. Was he relieved to be getting away from his brother at last? Was he nervous of what he might find at his uncle's home, or excited by a new opportunity?
On the first night of Jacob's journey, while he sleeps, he has his famous dream of a ladder reaching to heaven with angels ascending and descending it.
Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place- and I did not know it!"
Genesis 28: 16
Was this perhaps the moment that Jacob began to grow up? He has left behind the security of his family and his childhood, and it is on his journey that he meets God for himself, and realises that God is not just the God of his grandfather Abraham or his father Isaac- but is there for him too.
Psalm 139 reminds us of this:
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence?
If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
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