And I Knew it Not
"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." Gen. 28: 16,17.
There is a sense in which the days of our lives only become real after they’ve passed. We never quite know the meaning of an event until it's gone. Even then, we wonder if we see it right. Jacob had been passing through a season of great self-inflicted suffering. He was a fugitive from his house, an exile from his country. He was homeless, friendless, wandering, and weary. Void of his hoped-for fortunes, he only has a stone pillow for his head. He must have wondered if the wings of Divine favor had passed him by. Have his sins left him in the wilderness alone? He said, in his soul, “my way is hidden from the Lord” (Isa. 40:27), and he slept, not only out of weariness but out of sorts.
After a great vision, he awakens! And what did he find? He found that he had been mistaken all along. He discovered that he had never been so near to God as when he thought God was furthest away. At the very moment Jacob felt most alone, the hands of heavenly glory were busy all around him. And the Angel of the LORD stood by. He saw that, unconsciously, he had been standing on holy ground all along. (Gen 12 & 13) Before Jacob left Beth-el, he lamentingly cried… “Surely the Lord was in this place, and I knew it not.”
Dear soul, is this your experience? In your sorrow, how often have you said, “Verily, Thou art a God that hidest Thyself”? (Isa. 45:15) How often have you slept in the heaviness of your heart and desired not to wake? You did not know, but all around you are ministering spirits, and over it all stands the LORD of Hosts. (Gen. 28:13) And so, you awaken. The darkness has passed. God had been with you through the night season of your trial. Where your tears became the fractals, you saw Christ through.
Dear one, it is not only to the glory of the future that you must look; you must look to see the glory of the past. You must learn to see that your yesterdays were all very good, though you did not see it then. You must confess over all your yesteryears, “Surely the Lord was in that place, and I knew it not.”