Arise and Go Up to Bethel

How do you meet with God? How do you have a soul satisfying, hopeful relationship with God in this world? The question of hope and happiness has never seemed more elusive in a culture as prosperous as ours. We have never had more of our immediate needs taken for granted as we do today, and yet we find ourselves in the midst of the most anxious, psychologically burdened generation we’ve ever seen. Every day I am seeing best selling books and articles acknowledging this problem, sounding the alarm that all is not well in a world that just 150 years ago would have been considered a paradise.

 

This revelation is a mercy from God. It’s a mercy because we now have the surest evidence that we can stop wasting time thinking we are just one more discovery from finding hope. The answer to hope is found in God’s Word, and we will see how this chapter displays that for us.

 

Wonderfully, that hope is found in the midst of real life. As you no doubt noticed in the back half of the chapter, there isn’t a ton to be happy about. The hard things of dying in child birth and a scandalous son cannot overshadow the hope that God offers. No matter how modern we get, these are among the worst problems we can imagine. Yet God’s promises ring through even this and point to how we, too, can have a hopeful relationship with God.

 

Let’s look at this together in our two points Hope in God requires exclusive worship of God and Hope in God requires eternal waiting for God.