Day 6

“Ladder up.” The phrase popped into my head on waking this morning and stuck al day.

It started yesterday (see Day 5) but grew from a noun to a verb phrase overnight  - changing from an image to an action, from a concept to a conduct, from an understanding to an undertaking. It grew from a word from God to the word of God:

Genesis 28:
10 Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Haran. 11 When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. 12 He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 There above it  stood the LORD, and he said: "I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. 14 Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. 15 I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

16 When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it." 17 He was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven."

When God told me “ladder” yesterday, it framed two constructs. First the idea that God and we operate on two different levels. No wonder what appears impossible for us is absolutely possible for God. It is in the impossible, miraculous things, in fact, that God shows himself.

God is, as my friend Jeff Schulte puts it, “wholy (or holy) other.” He is not of this world, He is Creator OF the world and, therefore, outside and beyond the creation. We can’t relate to Him because he exists on an entirely different plane. That’s why he can do things that are supernatural. He is super natural – as the word implies, above nature.

Second, while the ladder demonstrates there is a gap, it is at the same time the connection bridging the two planes of existence. God has provided a way for us to access Him and not merely and forever live apart from him.

However “ladder UP” goes even further. Ladder up tells me that I need to look up, reach up climb up. Ladder up instructs me to carry the impossible concerns of this world to God.

I’m not to scheme or solve but to ladder up.
I’m to have compassion but to also ladder up.
I wont’ find the answers here on this plane so need to ladder up.
I can strain over pleas of prayer and pleasing prayer, but how much more freeing to actively ladder up.

Laddering up is active, it’s external. But right now, I’ve got to ladder down. Let’s see what God does tomorrow.

Posted by email from 40 Day Fast (posterous)