Stone Pillows

Genesis 28:11 - And he lighted upon a certain place, and tarried there all night, because the sun was set; and he took of the stones of that place, and put them for his pillows, and lay down in that place to sleep.

Sorry, I love the King James Version. 

I was listening to a R.C. Sproul sermon the other week and he mentioned that he had several revelation-like experiences when crossing over from non-belief to belief in Christ when a young man in college. His story in that way is similar to mine. I had several experiences in my late teens which convinced me of the Truth of Christianity. I don't intend to detail them here but supernatural revelations restructured my understanding of reality. I didn't think my way to faith. My thinking was changed however by these encounters with God. R.C. mentioned this story from Genesis 28:11.

With Jacob, the Old Testament Patriarch, he's a mommy's boy. Doesn't leave the tents. Domestic. He's an usurper of his brother's Esau's birthright and then blessing. Esau had it coming to him in a way as a carnal dude of an impetuous and rash nature. In conflicts, it is rarely the case that one party is completely right and the other is completely wrong. Rather, both parties have sin, to some degree or another. There are of course exceptions to this. There is some innocence vs guilt in life and also just being at the wrong place at the wrong time.  

I wish we could get back to the fundamental understanding that all have sinned. It would be a good place to start as the culture wars are premised on one side being completely right and the other being completely wrong. I mean, this is so unreal as to defy explanation. Our projection and then rejection response is awful. 

Jacob has to run because Esau intends to hunt him down. So Jacob is told by his mom to head to her brother Laban's lands far enough away from Esau's active anger.  And it turns out to be a while. At least 14 years and change.  Things done in minutes can having lasting and long-reaching consequences. It is fairly frightening if we really think about it.  Maybe we should think about it more. It is a hard thought.

Which, coincidentally, brings my major idea for today. Jacob has to settle down for the night since it is getting dark and finds a rock to make his pillow. Those two things don't go together as a rule. He may had nothing else. Chances are when he took off he didn't have a lot of time to pack. So, a stone pillow it is. A hard place. 

What has kind of struck me about this passage is maybe having a hard thing for his head was fundamentally a good and helpful thing for Jacob to experience. He had been spoiled and doted upon his whole life. His character was entitled and poor. Now, all of that came to rest on something about as hard as his head. For it was the only thing hard about him, that selfishness of ego. It is all about me.

Well, the rock didn't give succor. It remained hard. Yet, Jacob experiences a revelation of angels going up and down a ladder in his dreams. The stone pillow inculcates some much needed vertical thinking of God. Not the horizontal plane he has practiced his whole life up to then.   

The rock he lays his head on grounds him in a way a soft pillow never would. It didn't budge. Maybe it provided some insight to him about how he, through his bad behavior, had gotten himself into a hard place and it was time for his character to change for the better.

As is often the case with a manipulator, his future father-in-law uses him for 14 years so that he can marry his younger daughter. Now that he is on the other side of unethical behavior, he feels the sting of injustice.  And lest we think that his character was sterling from that point forward, be assured that there were still many bad decisions to come arising from his own depraved nature. 

That the 12 Tribes of Israel could come from such a dysfunctional band of half-brothers, from several different mothers, is both amusing and horrifying. And perhaps even a bit encouraging. God will use hard stones to to set our heads aright.