Wherever I Have Gone, You're With Me

[S] Genesis 35:3 --
3 and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone."

[O] For Jacob, Bethel was the location of his tangible encounter with God and where He was changed from Jacob to Israel, a new beginning for him.  After so many years, Bethel still becomes the place where he encounters God and reminds him that God was always with him throughout the years wherever he was, and whatever he was doing.  This is a significant reminder for him to trust and renew his relationship with God.

[A] I don't know how intimate Jacob's relationship with God was but despite his conditions God's love for him never changed or departed from him.  My life is full of mistakes and failures of closing in on God's stupendous love due to my own weaknesses, but I also need to claim the fact that God will never leave me and calls me to return to my Bethel.

[P] Dear Father, I want to return to my Bethel every day so that the strong intimacy will outweigh all of my failures and wanderings so I, too, will walk the life that will please You like Jacob and to be part of Your major plans here on earth.  In Jesus' name.  Amen.