“God said to Jacob, ‘Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.'” (Genesis 35:1) What an invitation! God beckons me personally. God bids me up from everything else. God points me to the place “where he revealed himself” and God blesses there, “I am God Almighty [El Shaddai] , be fruitful and multiply.”
The earlier Bethel was where, 20 years earlier, the LORD appeared on the ladder, the mediator between heaven and earth, where Jacob committed to follow, to trust. Since then, Jacob now describes, “God answers me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”
Bethel. House of God. God bids me come. I hear. I ‘put away foreign gods, purify myself, change my garments, arise, and go up’ to meet Him there.
Thank You, LORD, for making the way. Thank you for your voice and our meeting place. Thank You for daily pillars of remembrance and recommitment and the sweetness of knowing we have communed. Thank You for the call to go from Bethel and be fruitful, in the strength of my God Almighty.
As the rain and snow 