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A God Who Stays

A God Who Stays

Last updated on: July 20, 2026 at 10:34 am by Rob Giannamore

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A God Who Stays 2026-07-20T10:34:21-04:00 Rob Giannamore

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Miller Station UMC | July 19, 2026| Anchor Verse: Genesis 28:10-22

Jacob’s surprising encounter with God in Bethel leads to reflection about where we as individuals meet God unexpectantly on life’s journey. I want to open this message with the question, “Where have you experienced God in a place or season you did not expect?” For me it was my second Master’s degree. After nineteen previous years of schooling, I did okay, but not spectacular. Imagine my surprise when after my first class of my second Master’s I pulled a 4.0. thinking this was a fluke, I tried it again, and what do you know?, another 4.0, I was not fully convinced I was on to something until I complete a full year of flawless classes and a score of 4.0.

Much like Jacob, I found myself after my first career traveling on an unfamiliar road, displaced and certain. How man of you have felt disoriented, displaced and uncertain and in the midst of doubt and wonder, you met God and God showed you the way. Today’s message is about a God who does not wait for us to arrive somewhere, but stays with us on the entirety of the journey.

A Loving Parent

When I became a parent for the first time, I was twenty-five years old. I carried with me my Italian Catholic upbringing, nine years of military experience, and a behavioral health journey I was still learning to understand. I loved my child deeply, but I was also parenting from the patterns I had inherited and the wounds I had not yet named. That is often how parenting begins: with love, limitation, and a lot to learn.

That is one reason parenting styles have become one of my favorite topics to discuss as a clinician. We know there are four types of parenting but only one is noted to be the gold standard, the attached parenting style. In the same way, there are many ways to look at God and for many, we grew up or inherited a God who reflects the controlling and rigid authoritarian style that I grew up with. The attached parent is the one who remains present and open to needs of their child, much like the Open and Relational God does.

Jacob’s own family story was complicated. His mother helped him trick his brother and father so he could receive Esau’s birthright and Isaac’s blessing. So when Jacob ends up alone on the road, he is not simply a heroic figure having a holy moment; he is a flawed person carrying the consequences of his choices. And yet, God meets him there. God’s response is not to strike him down for his sins, but to give him a blessing. In Jacob’s story, struggle does not mean the relationship is broken. Sometimes wrestling is part of how trust begins to grow. Despite Jacob’s deception and uncertainty, God does not abandon him. God stays with him.

And perhaps that is good news for us, because we also come to God with complicated stories. We bring our mistakes, our uncertainty, our questions, and sometimes even the consequences of decisions we wish we had made differently. But Jacob’s story reminds us that God does not wait for us to become settled, polished, or certain before drawing near. We do not always meet God through calm certainty. Sometimes we meet God in the tension, in the questions, and in the places where we are still wrestling. The God who stays is not frightened by our struggle. God welcomes us close enough to keep growing.

What if faith is not always quiet acceptance? What if faith is sometimes the courage to wrestle honestly with the One who refuses to let us go?

Spiritual Practices that Help Us Recognize the God Who Stays

As a clinician, I often work with clients who struggle with low self-esteem. Helping someone rebuild a sense of worth can be slow, careful and at times tedious work. In a similar way, helping people receive the grace-filled love of God, and learning to offer that same grace-filled love to others, can take time. I imagine Jacob knew something about that kind of struggle. As he wrestled with God, perhaps he carried feelings of impostor syndrome, shame, inadequacy, or even the stubbornness of his own ego. Whatever he brought into that encounter, Jacob’s wrestling becomes a mirror for our own spiritual wrestling. It reminds us that sometimes we have to struggle honestly before we can recognize the God who stays.

So how do we become the kind of people who can notice, recognize, and receive the God who stays? I want to explore three spiritual practices that can help us pay attention: questing, imagination, and openness. These practices help us become more aware of the God who is already present with us on the journey.

Questing begins with learning to ask better questions. Sometimes our first questions are shaped by fear: “Why is this happening to me?” “How do I get out of this?” “What did I do wrong?” Those questions are honest, and God can hold them. But spiritual questing invites us to ask deeper questions too: “Where is God in this?” “What is God revealing?” “Who am I becoming on this road?” Jacob may have thought he was simply running from his past, but in that lonely place God opened his eyes to a larger story. Questing helps us stop assuming that hard places are empty places. It teaches us to look again and ask whether God may already be present in ways we have not yet recognized.

Imagination is the practice of seeing beyond what is immediately obvious. Jacob took an ordinary stone, used it for a pillow, and woke up to discover that the place was holy. Holy imagination helps us look at ordinary places with renewed attention. It asks us to consider that God may meet us in a classroom, a hospital room, a kitchen conversation, a long commute, a season of transition, or even a place of disappointment. Imagination does not mean pretending life is easier than it is. It means trusting that the visible world is not the whole story. It opens us to the possibility that heaven and earth may be closer than we thought.

Openness asks us to loosen our grip on certainty. Many of us come to God with a plan already in mind. We know what we want God to bless, fix, approve, or make happen. But sometimes our own agenda becomes so loud that we cannot hear God’s invitation. Openness does not mean we stop hoping, planning, or praying honestly. It means we hold our plans with humility and make room for God to surprise us. Jacob did not go to Bethel looking for a ladder between heaven and earth. He did not plan that encounter. He simply stopped for the night, and God met him there. Openness helps us receive the God who comes to us in unexpected ways.

When we cling too tightly to our own agenda, we may miss God’s presence because we are looking for God to bless our plan instead of noticing where God is already at work. So the invitation for us is to practice questing, imagination, and openness together. We ask deeper questions. We look again at ordinary places. We loosen our grip on certainty. And as we do, we may discover what Jacob discovered: “Surely the Lord is in this place—and I did not know it.”

The Lost Verses

This week’s lectionary reading stops before verses 20–22, and I think that matters. The lectionary is not trying to hide something from us, but these verses move the story in an important direction. Up to this point, the focus has been on God’s initiative: God appears, God promises, God stays. But in these final verses, Jacob begins to respond. And his response invites us to ask what our own response might be when we realize God has been with us all along.

Verses 20–21 point us toward God’s providence. Jacob says, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear…” In other words, Jacob is naming the very human needs we all carry: protection, provision, guidance, and a way home.

Verse 22 then turns us toward response. Jacob promises that this place will be God’s house and that he will give back to God. The movement is important: Jacob receives God’s faithfulness, and then he begins to imagine a life shaped by worship, gratitude, and service.

That may be one reason these verses are not included in the lectionary reading. The appointed passage keeps our attention on God’s gracious initiative rather than Jacob’s response. And that is important, because grace always begins with God. God does not wait for Jacob to have perfect faith, perfect motives, or perfect understanding. God meets him first. God blesses him first. God promises to stay with him first.

These lost verses remind us that grace is never meant to leave us unchanged. Jacob’s vow is not polished. It even sounds conditional: “If God will be with me…” But maybe that is part of the honesty of the story. This is a conditionality that marks our own human experience. Jacob like all of us sitting here this morning is still learning how to trust. He is still learning who God is. And even there, God remains present. The good news is not that Jacob gets everything right. The good news is that God stays with Jacob and us long enough for trust to grow.

And that is where this story becomes our story. When we recognize God’s providence, when we look back and see that God has guided us, provided for us, protected us, and stayed with us, the invitation is not simply to say, “Thank you.” The invitation is to let gratitude become service. We give back not because God needs to be convinced to love us, but because we have already been loved. We serve not to earn God’s presence, but because God’s presence has already found us on the road.

To Close

I want to close this morning with this thought – The good news of Jacob’s story is not that Jacob finally found God. The good news is that God found Jacob. God found him on the road, in the dark, with a stone for a pillow and a past behind him. And God stayed. That is the good news for us too. God meets us in the places we did not plan, walks with us through the seasons we did not choose, and stays long enough for trust to grow. So may we leave this place with open eyes, open hands, and open hearts, ready to recognize the God who has been with us all along. Amen.

Benediction

Beloved, the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God. May the Spirit bless us and empower us to reveal ourselves as the children of God as we work for the flourishing of all creation. Amen.

Written by author – May you be happy, May you be safe, may you be at ease and may the love of Christ supply all your needs this week, go in peace.

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