Prayer: The Ladder to Heaven

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Sometimes the topics that come to my mind for the Glimmers blog overwhelm me. They are often far too big for me to even scratch the surface of their spiritual impact within a mere 10 or 15 minutes. But just when I am about to abandon one of these enormous ideas, the Holy Spirit nudges me more insistently to make the attempt. That’s when I usually venture into Matthew Henry’s whole Bible commentary, the unabridged version, for a deep dive into theology accompanied by a prayer for accuracy and understanding. With a type size that would make a contracts lawyer jealous and more pages than the Bible itself, I also ask God to help me get in and get out of the commentary in less than an hour or two.

Today’s topic sent me into Henry’s vast knowledge base, not once, but twice. And though I’ve been thinking about it for several weeks now, I still feel woefully unprepared to talk about it. The reason I’m sharing these feelings of inadequacy is because it’s so important to know that mystery of prayer, its power, its potential, its role in God’s sovereignty, and how it actually changes things cannot be fully understood by anyone. Anyone. Scholars, missionaries, pastors, great authors, and even scientists throughout the ages have all offered incredible theories, but the truth is that we cannot fully explain or comprehend prayer any more than we can fully grasp God Himself.

Prayer is the aroma of heaven itself (Revelation 5:8), the expression of God at work in us (2 Chronicles 7:14), a shield of protection (Matthew 26:41), and the mechanism by which God not only draws us closer to Him (Romans 8:26), but also releases His power here on earth (James 5:16-18). Just as the Word of God is Jesus (John 1:1), so prayer is God’s very hand stirring among the hearts of His children. It is an enigma that I am both mesmerized by and also long to have more of throughout my day. After all, scripture commands that we pray without ceasing (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), so the closer we can move toward fulfilling that request, the more we will know and experience God.

The germination of this message about prayer all started with a vision I had in the middle of the night several weeks ago. I can count on one hand the number of times God has reached out to me in this manner, so my first reaction was to dismiss it as my imagination, which is particularly overactive in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. But the next morning, during my usual quiet time, the Holy Spirit kept bringing it to my attention over and over. So, after spending time praying, reading and re-reading the Bible passage associated with my vision, I was off to the big fat Bible commentary to explore what the scholar had to say about it.

The vision had come in the middle of the night. I was lying on my back staring at the tongue and groove ceiling above my bed, which was illuminated only by the faint light of a clock radio. Quite suddenly, I noticed something that I had never considered before. The low eave of the dormer, which I had hit my head on numerous times — either getting into or getting out of the bed — was close enough for me touch it, yet it reached all the way to the soaring rafters of our cathedral ceiling. There was no way for me to ever reach the top, but I could indeed touch a part of the ceiling with my fingertips. As I pondered this, which admittedly seems more amazing at 2 a.m. than it does now, the story of Jacob from Genesis 28:10-17 flooded my thoughts in mind-blowing detail. Scriptures coming to my mind are common, especially the ones I’ve memorized and relied on for many years. But Old Testament stories like this one haven’t been on the forefront of my thoughts since perhaps my fourth-grade summer in vacation Bible school. Yet, there it was: Jacob’s ladder in full color.

In case you’re not familiar with this story, I will quickly summarize it. Isaac told his son Jacob to go far from home and seek his bride in the land of his forefathers. Alone and afraid of his vindictive brother Esau, Jacob stopped for the night to get some rest outside under the stars. We pick up the story here, in verse 12. “As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from the earth up to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down the stairway. At the top of the stairway stood the Lord, and He said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of your grandfather Abraham, and the God of your father, Isaac. The ground you are lying on belongs to you. I am giving it to you and your descendants. Your descendants will be as numerous as the dust of the earth! They will spread out in all directions — to the west and the east, to the north and the south. And all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants. What’s more, I am with you, and I will protect you wherever you go. One day I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have finished giving you everything I have promised you’.”

Like I am sure Jacob was, I lay there awestruck as I thought about the almighty God giving his children a heavenly bridge to connect with Him. For just a brief moment, God gave Jacob a glimpse into the glorious happenings all around him — things he would’ve never seen with human eyes. For weeks leading up to this vision of Jacob’s ladder, I had been seeking God in prayer and asking Him to help me understand His perspective on some troubling and puzzling things happening around me. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” So my belief was telling me that God is at work on my behalf. But my personal experiences were telling me that what I view as good is very different than what God sees as good. At the core of my mental wrestling match was John 15:16, which says in part, “Whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you.” But we all know asking God for a candy apple red Ferrari is not what Jesus meant by that statement. Most of us readily accept that God wants us to ask for what is truly good, not what we desire. But what about asking for healing from a serious illness or deliverance from an addiction? Sometimes we pray for those “good” things and they don’t happen. How can those things not be included in God’s definition of good?

So what does Jacob’s ladder have to do with any of this? I also wondered that until I consulted with Mr. Henry on the subject and then re-read the passage from Genesis again. The ladder from heaven gave Jacob a clear glimpse of God’s perspective on the troubling situation, but it also affirmed God’s plan for Jacob’s future. Jacob would not only survive this temporary trial, but he would also be a vehicle for God to bless the entire earth. This occurs through the coming of the Messiah, who was a descendant of Jacob. Jesus would become the bridge from heaven to earth for all of humankind.

After witnessing the heavenly spectacle Jacob exclaims, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it!” And with his faith bolstered in God’s promises, he then makes a vow in verse 20 to trust God for not only protection on his journey and his future, but even the tiniest of everyday necessities, such as food and clothing. In essence, he was committing to God that he would not worry about anything, no matter how small. He promised to trust God to determine what was good for his life, versus making his own plans. To seal his vow, he built a memorial pillar on the site and committed to giving God a tenth of all that he would gain from that point forward.

Suddenly I realized that I had been asking the wrong question all along. There is no need to ask God to help me understand what is truly good. If I knew all that was truly good before He brought it to me, then I would not need to have faith. To ask God to tell me what is good ahead of time is like asking Him to reveal the future to me. Instead, just like Jacob, I have a ladder to heaven right now. We all do. We can’t actually climb it until He calls us home, but just like my ceiling, we have a low eave that we can touch and gain immediate access to the heavens. It’s called prayer. Jesus is the bridge for our prayers. Through His Spirit, our requests — whether flawed or on target — are transformed before the throne of God as a pleasing aroma. The more we pray and see how God answers, the more the Holy Spirit trains our ears and eyes to discern what is truly good. It is nothing we can do for ourselves. It is the miraculous, transformative work of God.

Romans 8:26-27 explains what happens when we pray: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”

I still don’t understand why some prayers take many years, or even a lifetime, to be answered, but I am now beginning to understand — just a tiny bit — that what I think or comprehend is entirely irrelevant. My mind is only a tiny grain of sand on the vast beach of God’s brilliance, power, and love. I’ve realized that my cravings to know anything other than God Himself are all rooted in a desire to please myself, in order to be more comfortable or to avoid waiting on His plan to unfold. It comes down to trusting the Holy Spirit to reveal what I need to know when God wants me to know it. And not a second before.

As I contemplated all of this and wondered if I could possibly capture it into words, God whispered to me, “I will never disappoint you, but your own expectations about Me will. Stop your wondering… allow your mind to stop spinning. Rest now. Rather than trying to guess what I will do, find freedom and rest in the simple enjoyment of expecting Me to do great things. You don’t need to know what they are. You only need to get to know Me more.”
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Like Jacob, I have been given a glorious hope and a future through Jesus. And so have you. He is your ladder to heaven. And no matter what the situation around you looks like — good, bad, or downright ugly — when you gaze up at Him your vision will slowly begin to change.

What do you think of today's message? Comment and share your thoughts below! And if God brought someone to mind as you read or listened, please encourage them by sharing this post today!

For Further Reflection and Daily Spiritual Journaling
The questions and readings below can be used for a single-day study or your daily quiet time throughout the week.
Day 1 - Oswald Chambers once said of prayer, “We hear it said that a person’s life will suffer if he doesn’t pray, but I question that. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God in him, which is nourished not by food, but by prayer.” How have you seen prayer nourish the work of Jesus in you? Read Ephesians 3:20-21 and ask the Holy Spirit to help you catch a glimpse of what God might want to do in your life through the power of Jesus at work in your heart. Journal about what that might mean for you and how it should impact your prayer time.
Day 2 - Read James 1:17. How have you doubted God’s desire to give you good gifts? Pray and ask God to help you recall a time when you didn’t realize something that felt uncomfortable at the time was actually a good gift from your Heavenly Father.
Day 3 - Read Psalm 42:1-2. Has there ever been a time when you longed for a gift from God more than you longed for Him? Confess that to God and ask Him to fill your heart and mind with His presence.
Day 4 - Read 2 Corinthians 3:17. What freedom do you need today through the power of Jesus? Like a ladder to heaven, how does prayer help you get closer to that freedom?
Day 5 - Read 2 Corinthians 2:14-16. In what ways are you called to be a fragrance to others on behalf of Jesus? What role does prayer play in being a pleasing aroma?

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