Genesis 28:11-16

Genesis 28:11

Sleeping to see. One may be too wide-awake to see. There are things which are hidden from us until we lie down to sleep. Only then do the heavens open and the angels of God disclose themselves.

I. It does not follow that God is not because we cannot discern Him, because we are not aware of Him. Little do we dream of the veiled wonders and splendours amidst which we move. To Jacob's mental fret and confusion, the wilderness where God brooded was a wilderness and nothing more. But in sleep he grew tranquil and still; he lost himself the flurried, heated, uneasy self that he had brought with him from Beersheba, and while he sleptthe hitherto unperceived Eternal came out softly, largely, above and around him. We learn from this the secret of the Lord's nearness.

II. No man is ever completely awake; somethingin him always sleeps. There is a sense in which it may be said with truth that were we less wakeful, more of God and spiritual realities might be unveiled to us. We are always doingtoo much so for finest being; are always striving too much so for highest attaining. Our religion consists too much in solicitude to get;it is continually "The Lord, the Father of mercies," rather than "The Lord, the Father of glory."We require to sleep from ourselvesbefore the heavens can open upon us freely and richly flow around us.

S. A. Tipple, Echoes of Spoken Words,p. 201.

Reference: Genesis 28:11. Homiletic Quarterly,vol. iii., p. 529.