“God is here, and I didn’t know it.” Why wouldn’t Jacob know this? Because of his circumstances. He knew he was nothing but a conniver, hiding out in a seemingly God-forsaken, rocky region.

That may be your story today. You may feel like you’re stuck in a rocky situation, a rocky marriage, rocky finances, or on a rocky road. But God would say to you today, “I’m with you in this place, even though you may not know it.”

What can separate us from the love of God? Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature (Romans 8:38–39). Why? Because there is no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). There is no separation because there is no condemnation. Why is there no condemnation? Because Jesus Christ - our hero, our Lord - took all of the sin that would separate us from the Father - the sins we committed last year, the sins we’re committing now, and the sins we’ll commit tomorrow - and paid for them all.

If you find yourself in a rocky situation, you have a choice: you can either say, “God is nowhere,” or like Jacob, you can look at your surroundings, add the space of grace, and with new eyes say, “God is now here.”