Thanks for tuning in, it's an honor to be with you.

As we study God's Word together, may our time uplift and encourage you.

If you could use some hope, I pray you find it here today.

In today's episode, we find Jacob as a fugitive.

He's fled his home running away from his angry brother.

He's pinning us and in an unfamiliar land.

But in this most unexpected place, Jacob encounters God in a dream.

God met Jacob when Jacob wasn't even looking for him.

And God will meet you too.

You have had or will have moments of deep despair.

You've had or will have hours in which your eyes

weep a river and your heart breaks into a thousand pieces.

You've had or will have journeys through dry,

barren stretches of life that will leave you feeling all by yourself and exhausted.

You will feel stripped of everything you cherish.

You'll look around and find no one to comfort you.

You will search for strength, but the search will be in vain because strength will not come.

Yet in that desolate moment, as you sit near a headstone and cry

on a bar stool and drink in your bedroom and sigh, I want you to know that God will meet you.

He will meet you there. You will sense him and you will see him as never before.

So please do not begrudge the barren stretches.

For it is in our barrenness that we encounter God.

...