Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

Genesis 28:16 (NASB)

Jesus often reveals himself in your rear view mirror. Sometimes you don’t recognize that he was in a certain place with you until you get a little further down the road. Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, especially when the Holy Spirit is providing the lens through which you look.

How do you know Jesus was there? Because of what happens later.

Jesus was revealing himself in the darkest hour of my life.

In fact, he was orchestrating the darkest hour of my life. The intervention. The moment when all the ways I had seen myself — in the best possible light — were stripped away. Why? So he could show me what I had truly become in my heart of hearts, in the place from which I lived and declared, one day at a time, who I was.

What I saw was ugly, even disgusting. It sent me into a tailspin of grief and despair that ensured I could never go back to what I had seen about myself.

I had no idea it was Jesus. But someone had been praying for me. Someone had told me several times in recent weeks, “Jesus loves you.” Since my friends weren’t answering the phone, I called out to the one I didn’t even believe in yet, just in case he was there.

No visions, no voices, no wonderful feeling came in reply. Just emptiness and the sense of being absolutely bankrupt, alone and helpless.

It was the worst and best moment of my life. The worst because the brutal truth confronted me and brought me down. The best because, after crying my heart out, I limped out of that place with the thought to make one phone call. For me, the most unlikely phone call I could ever make. A call that led to a skeptical encounter, that led to a tentative back row visit to a church service.

Then it came: a wave of powerful love that enveloped and washed over me, and the unmistakable knowing that Jesus lived, that He loved and wanted me. Me: sinful, selfish, rebellious me.

Jacob and me had something in common.

Jacob, grandson of Abraham — whose name means deceiver — had just committed the greatest deception of his life when he left his home in search of blessing from the Lord. Having slept in a field, experiencing a vision and dream, he awoke and said those words, “Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.”

After I awoke to the awesome love of Christ, and looked back upon the worst day of my life, I saw clearly how the Lord had been there.

Why had I not known it before? Because it was painful as He stripped off my rose colored glasses and showed me truth.

We don’t easily perceive Jesus being present in our emerging pain. We usually only being to find him as we seek a way out of the pain. Perhaps that is because when a bad thing is assaulting our heart, we think of Jesus as being AWOL somehow; otherwise He would have kept us from that hurt. We may cry out, “Where are you, God???” unaware we are saying it right to His face.

“This is none other than the gave of heaven.”

After Jacob awoke from his vision, he declared:

How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.

Gnesis 28:17

And so it was for me, too, in the hours following that awful moment. I didn’t know Jesus was there, showing me truth — and thereby actually causing my pain. But that moment brought me to the gate of heaven, and ultimately into the family and house of God, where I have shared life with Him ever since.

There have been many times and other challenging moments when I didn’t realize Jesus was there, until later. Having come through the challenge, He only came into full view in the rear view mirror.

I could fill a journal with stories of Jesus in my rear view mirror. Times when he let me go through uncomfortable things, left me wondering why He didn’t seem to be rescuing me — only to realize later that rather than rescue me, He had been standing with me, filling me with the strength to go through it and come out just fine.

Go through enough of those moments, and you begin to lose your fear of going through stuff.

Which is a good thing, because stuff happens. The bumper sticker says so.

There are some things — like confidence to face a battle — you just can’t come up with until you actually face the battle. Some of you have faced unthinkable things, things that threatened to swallow you up in despair, things that made you ask, “Where are you, Jesus? Why did you let this happen?”

Wait for the reveal, Beloved. It will surely come!

David, who endured many awful things that tested his faith in an invisible God, said:

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.

Psalms 27:13-14 (NIV)

Like the rear view mirror says: objects are closer than they appear.