Does God Want Your Ceiling to Become Your Floor?

by Nathan Shaw

Jacob first encountered the glory realm in a dream (Genesis 28:10-22). He had just cheated his brother Esau out of the blessing reserved for the firstborn. Esau’s intent was murderous. Jacob fled for his life. It’s a good thing that even fugitives need to sleep. In his dream Jacob saw three things. 1. A stairway between earth and heaven. 2. Angels ascending and descending on the stairway. 3. Yahweh, who spoke words of covenant promise and covenant blessing to him. When Jacob woke he was stunned and awed. The dream had been startlingly more real than his earthly reality. It was definitely the high-point of his spiritual experience. Suddenly the thing Jacob coveted the most—the blessing of the firstborn, given by his father Isaac—paled in comparison with the blessing he had just received from Yahweh.

Twenty years later Jacob returned to the land of Canaan with the manifested blessings of a family and significant wealth. Regardless, he still feared for his life. Esau’s reaction to him—despite all these years—was still an unknown. In this context of extreme anxiety Jacob met with angels at a place called Mahanaim (Genesis 32:1). Mahanaim means the place of the double camp. In Jacob’s previous dream he saw angels. Now Jacob met with angels just like you would meet with a person.

Despite Jacob’s encounter with angels it didn’t allay his worst fears. The closer Jacob came to meeting Esau, the more his anxiety grew. The night before the meeting with Esau, Jacob wrestled through the night with a mysterious Man. The Man turned out to be none other than God Himself (Genesis 32:24-32). In Genesis 28 Jacob saw God in a dream. In Genesis 32 Jacob wrestled with God like you would wrestle with a man.

For Jacob, the Genesis 28 dream had become the high-point of his spiritual experience. Twenty years later this high-point was superseded when he met with angels and then met with God, not in a dream, but face to face. What had originally been the ceiling of his spiritual experience now became like the floor. This formed such a clear line of demarcation in Jacob’s life that his name was changed to Israel.

The book of Revelation describes a series of profound life-changing encounters that John had with God. There is no way you could experience what John experienced and not have it radically impact the rest of your life. But John was already very familiar with the spirit realm and already had a powerful prophetic ministry that impacted nations (Revelation 1:10, 10:11). The encounters described in the book of Revelation undoubtedly took John’s experiences and ministry impact to a whole new level. In the midst of the book of Revelation he was given a powerful commission: “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings” (Revelation 10:11 emphasis added). It’s like John’s ceiling became his floor.

One bible scholar makes this comment about Revelation 10:11: “John’s mission is to lay bare the forces of the supernatural world that are at work behind the activities of people and nations” (Robert Mounce, The Book of Revelation, NICNT). Wow. John’s eyes had been opened so that God could use him to open the eyes of many others. Jacob and John were both familiar with the spirit realm. Jacob and John both had encounters that caused their ceilings to become their floors.

Many people encounter God in profound ways and think of those encounters as the high points of their spiritual experience. It is undoubtedly true that one simple encounter with God can release life-changing revelation. However, many times those encounters are also prophecies. They prophecy the dimensions of glory that God has destined the person to walk in permanently. Could it be that God has destined the exceptional to become the norm in your life? The story arc of Jacob’s life and John’s life will be repeated many times in the lives of those in our generation. So let me ask some important questions. Has God encountered you in the past? Does that encounter define the high-point of your spiritual experience? Or, is it also a prophecy? Does God want your ceiling to become your floor?

© 2025 Nathan Shaw.

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