“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.’”
—Genesis 28:16 ESV

Jacob was running for his life.

He had always had a rocky relationship with his brother Esau, but after cheating him out of their father’s blessing (very important in Jewish culture), Esau was out for blood.

So Jacob did the only logical thing: he fled.

And on the road, he had his first encounter with the Lord: the now-famous dream where he saw angels ascending and descending on a staircase that reached the heavens.

After waking from that dream, Jacob made a profound statement: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

My question is this: how many of us, like Jacob, live life completely unaware of the presence of God?

Jesus was clear: he would be with us always (see Matthew 28:20).

God is near. The question is: are we aware of him?

Here is a simple prayer to carry with you today:

Breathe in: God,
Breathe out: You are in this place.

P.S. We will take a brief hiatus of our journey verse-by-verse through the Psalms, because as you probably know, Wednesday is the first day of Lent, and I am excited to announce that I will be writing a special 40-day devotional for this special season leading up to Easter.

I will be sharing more details in the next day or two, so stay tuned!