Some of these are quite personal. Hope you don’t mind.

Genesis 35:1, 5, 10 (Originally written 1-14-10)

Then God said to Jacob, “Go up to Bethel and settle there, and build an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you were fleeing from your brother Esau.” (1)

God said to him, “Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.” So he named him Israel. (10)

After Chapter 34, Jacob needed to return to Bethel, to the original calling. He needed to get rid of the religious clutter, the false gods, the junk that had accumulated as they’d traveled.

And he needed to re-acquire his calling, his God-given name, Israel, one he’d been given years ago but had never claimed. God even again told the father of 11 sons to “be fruitful and multiply.”

I’m sure that’s true for all of us. We need to periodically return to Bethel, to our original calling, our “new name”. I know I’m feeling that call, that emptiness as I moved about God’s business but have let my life be too cluttered to hear His voice as clearly as I used to.

The fear is that if I let down long enough to look (and listen) up, things will fall apart. Stuff won’t get done. Problems will arise.

But though Jacob was doing a dangerous thing returning to Bethel, opening his family up to attack and the dangers of travel, God protected.

Because God knows how important it is for all of us to occasionally return to Bethel.

[Father, bring me back to Bethel. Help me to hear Your voice again with clarity and to be renewed in Your vision and calling for my life.]