There is no event so common place
but that God is present within it, always hiddenly,
always leaving you room to recognize him or not…
because in the last analysis all moments are key moments,
and life itself is grace.
Frederick Buechner

“There are two great tragedies in life,” it’s been said. “One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it.” A wise sage has also pointed out that, “Nothing fails quite so completely as success without God.”

Those two declarations pretty much fit Jacob as we find him in Genesis 28. He was successful in gaining his heart’s desire: the patriarchal blessing that secured his birthright. But in gaining it apart from God, he loses everything else.

In complicity with his mother, he deceived his father and ripped off his brother. As a result, he ends up leaving the only home he’s ever known, on the run for his life in what appears to be a godforsaken desert. But things are not as they appear. Jacob, lost and alone, is about to discover that God is closer than we think.