How to Be Amazed Again: Seeing God Everyday

Psalm 19 opens with a world already talking. The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands, and day after day creation pours forth speech. The sun rises and sets because the earth is spinning at a thousand miles per hour, lightning comes in hot with raw power, and the colors of West Texas skies keep preaching. The question is whether creation still amazes the soul, or whether the ordinary has become too ordinary.

Genesis 28 brings that question down into the dirt. The story finds Jacob running for his life after tricking his brother and deceiving his father. The grandson of Abraham, the heir of promise, ends up alone, tired, scared, and sleeping with a rock for a pillow. The promise of God is still over him, but survival is all he can see.

The dream opens the world as Scripture sees it. A stairway rests on the earth and reaches to heaven, angels ascend and descend, and the Lord stands above it. God does not scold Jacob first. God speaks the old promise again: the land, the descendants, the blessing for all peoples, the presence that will not leave until every promise is done. The dream is not just a weird night vision. The dream is revelation, and it wakes Jacob up.

Jacob’s confession gives the whole point: “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” The problem is not always unbelief. The problem may be that eyes have stopped looking, stopped expecting, stopped noticing. Even Jacob, living inside the world of Abraham and Isaac, could be blind to the presence of God until God opened his eyes.

Scripture assumes a world full of angels and demons, miracles and providence, fire and cloud, signs and wonders, and the still small whisper of the ordinary. God created, sin entered, violence spread, and God kept loving, pursuing, forgiving, and blessing. Jesus came to do what Israel could not do, carried sin into the grave, rose by the power of God, broke the permanence of death, and poured out the Spirit with power.

The Bible does not treat God as an idea for hard times. God is real, present, and working. Jesus says the Father is always working, promises not to leave his people as orphans, and remains with his disciples to the end of the age. The call is simple and searching: wake up, sleeper. Ask God to show something that cannot be unseen.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Creation is still speaking clearly The heavens do not whisper by accident. Psalm 19 pictures creation as a daily witness, pouring out speech before a single human word is added. The danger is not that the skies have gone silent, but that familiar beauty has been filed under “ordinary.” [49:40]
• 2. Ordinary life can hide holy ground Jacob went to sleep in fear, exhaustion, and survival mode, with nothing but a stone for a pillow. God met him there, not after the mess was fixed, but in the middle of it. Holy ground may be closer than comfort suggests, and blindness may be the only thing keeping a person from seeing it. [59:27]
• 3. God’s presence precedes awareness Jacob’s words, “I was not aware of it,” do not mean the Lord had just arrived. The Lord was already there, already speaking promise, already standing over the place Jacob thought was empty. Spiritual awakening often begins when a person discovers that God has been present before perception caught up. [70:40]
• 4. Scripture assumes a supernatural world The Bible does not flatten reality into what can be measured, explained, or controlled. Angels, dreams, miracles, demons, providence, fire, wind, and signs belong to the world Scripture opens every time it is read. Faith does not invent that world, but learns to stop dismissing it. [67:39]
• 5. Ask for an unseeable glimpse The invitation is not to chase spectacle for its own sake. The invitation is to ask God for eyes to see his real presence in family, work, fear, struggle, church, and the quiet places beneath the line of sight. One true glimpse of God at work can become something the soul cannot unsee.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [49:15] - Grace, Psalm 19, and Prayer
• [51:47] - Does God Still Amaze?
• [53:21] - Seeing God in Ordinary Life
• [54:41] - Paul Visits the Modern World
• [56:41] - Jacob, Esau, and a Family Fight
• [59:27] - Jacob Sleeps with a Stone Pillow
• [60:59] - Dreams as Revelation
• [63:31] - Scripture’s Supernatural World
• [65:34] - Jesus Fulfills God’s Story
• [67:39] - The Ordinary Is Not Ordinary
• [70:40] - Surely the Lord Is Here
• [73:43] - Ask for What Cannot Be Unseen
• [75:00] - Wake Up Sleeper

Bible Reading

Genesis 28:10-17
Jacob left Beersheba and set out for Harran. When he reached a certain place, he stopped for the night because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones there, he put it under his head and lay down to sleep. He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. There above it stood the Lord, and he said: "I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you." When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it." [59:34] [01:00:46]

Psalm 19:1-4
The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. [49:35]

Ephesians 5:14
This is why it is said: "Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." [01:15:07]

Observation questions

1. In Genesis 28, what details show Jacob’s condition before the dream, and what details show how unexpectedly God met him there? [59:27]
2. In Psalm 19:1-4, what actions are assigned to the heavens and skies, and how often do they do this?
3. What promises does God repeat to Jacob in the dream, and which one seems especially important for someone who is running for his life?
4. In Ephesians 5:14, what are the commands in the verse, and what promise follows them? [01:15:07]

Interpretation questions

1. Jacob says, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” What does that suggest about the difference between God’s presence and a person’s awareness of it? [01:10:40]
2. Psalm 19 says creation is constantly speaking. If that is true, what might keep people from hearing what creation is saying about God? [51:47]
3. Genesis 28 shows God speaking promise to Jacob before Jacob has cleaned up his mess. What does that reveal about how God approaches fearful, guilty, or exhausted people? [01:00:33]
4. Scripture presents a world full of angels, miracles, signs, and God’s active presence in ordinary life. How does that challenge a flat view of life where only what can be measured seems real? [01:07:39]

Application questions

1. Where does life feel most like Jacob’s night in the wilderness right now—fear, exhaustion, uncertainty, family strain, or simple survival? What would it look like to believe God may meet a person there, not just after things improve? [59:27]
2. Creation still pours forth speech. What part of ordinary life has become so familiar that it no longer leads to wonder—sunrise, weather, work, family rhythms, or something else? How might attention be rebuilt there this week? [52:18]
3. God’s presence does not begin when a person notices it. Is there an area of life where God may already be at work, but it has been hard to see—home, job, health, finances, or relationships? What signs of his nearness might have been overlooked? [01:11:20]
4. Many people do not struggle with outright unbelief as much as with stopped-up expectation. Has there been a season where prayer became routine, worship became familiar, or hope for God to act grew thin? What helped, or what might help now? [01:09:49]
5. Jesus says the Father is always working, and he does not leave his people as orphans. How would this week change if that were kept in view during stress, interruptions, and discouragement? [01:12:13]
6. “Wake up, sleeper” is a call to spiritual alertness. What would waking up look like in a practical way this week—slowing down, noticing beauty, praying with expectation, asking for help, or paying attention to one specific relationship? [01:15:07]
7. One honest prayer is to ask God to show something that cannot be unseen. Is that a prayer the group feels ready to pray? What makes that prayer exciting, and what makes it uncomfortable? [01:14:04]