We should remember that John wrote these words while on the island of Patmos. He was there “because of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 1:9). He had been banished to this island, which was an isolated, rocky, and inhospitable prison. Yet it was here, under difficult circumstances—separated from all his loved ones in Ephesus, excluded from worshiping with the church, and condemned to only the companionship of unpleasant fellow captives—that he was granted this vision as a special privilege. It was as a prisoner that he saw “a door standing open in heaven.”

We should also remember Jacob, who laid down in the desert to sleep after leaving his father’s house. “He had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and . . . above it stood the LORD” (Genesis 28:12–13).

The doors of heaven have been opened not only for these two men but also for many others. And in the world’s estimation, it seems as if their circumstances were utterly unlikely to receive such revelations. Yet how often we have seen “a door standing open in heaven” for those who are prisoners and captives, for those who suffer from a chronic illness and are bound with iron chains of pain to a bed of sickness, for those who wander the earth in lonely isolation, and for those who are kept from the Lord’s house by the demands of home and family.

But there are conditions to seeing the open door. We must know what it is to be “in the Spirit” (Revelation 1:10). We must be “pure in heart” (Matthew 5:8) and obedient in faith. We must be willing to “consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:8). Then once God is everything to us, so that “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28), the door to heaven will stand open before us as well.

God has His mountains bleak and bare, Where He does bid us rest awhile; Cliffs where we breathe a purer air, Lone peaks that catch the day’s first smile.

God has His deserts broad and brown— A solitude—a sea of sand, Where He does let heaven’s curtain down, Unveiled by His Almighty hand.

They were people who were living to themselves. Their hopes, promises, and dreams still controlled them, but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers.

They had asked for a repentant heart and had surrendered themselves with a willingness to pay any price for it, and He sent them sorrow. They had asked for purity, and He sent them sudden anguish. They had asked for meekness, and He had broken their hearts. They had asked to be dead to the world, and He killed all their living hopes. They had asked to be made like Him, so He placed them in the fire “as a refiner and purifier of silver” (Malachi 3:3), until they could reflect His image. They had asked to help carry His cross, yet when He held it out to them, it cut and tore their hands.

They had not fully understood what they asked, but He had taken them at their word and granted them all their requests. They had been unsure whether to follow Him such a long distance or whether to come so close to Him. An awe and a fear was upon them, as Jacob at Bethel when he dreamed of “a stairway . . . reaching to heaven” (Genesis 28:12), or Eliphaz “amid disquieting dreams in the night” (Job 4:13), or as the disciples when “they were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost” (Luke 24:37), not realizing it was Jesus. The disciples were so filled with awe, they felt like asking Him either to depart from them or to hide His glory.

They found it easier to obey than to suffer, to work than to give up, and to carry the cross than to hang upon it. But now they could not turn back, for they had come too close to the unseen cross of the spiritual life, and its virtues had pierced them too deeply. And the Lord was fulfilling this promise of His to them: “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).

Now at last their opportunity had come. Earlier they had only heard of the mystery, but now they felt it. He had fastened His eyes of love on them, as He had on Mary and Peter, so they could only choose to follow Him. And little by little, from time to time, with quick glimmers of light, the mystery of His cross shone upon them. They saw Him “lifted up from the earth,” and gazed on the glory that radiated from the wounds of His holy suffering. As they looked upon Him, they approached Him and were changed into His likeness. His name then shone out through them, for He lived within them. Their life from that moment on was one of inexpressible fellowship solely with Him above. They were willing to live without possessions that others owned and that they could have had, in order to be unlike others so they would be more like Him.

This is the description of all those throughout the ages who “follow the Lamb wherever he goes” (Revelation 14:4). If they had chosen selfishly for themselves or if their friends had chosen for them, they would have made other choices. Their lives would have shone more brightly here on earth but less gloriously in His kingdom. Their legacy would have been that of Lot instead of Abraham. And if they had stopped along the way or if God had removed His hand from them, allowing them to stray, what would they have lost? What would they have forfeited at their resurrection?

Yet God strengthened them and protected them, even from themselves. Often, in His mercy He held them up when they otherwise would have slipped and fallen. And even in this life, they knew that all He did was done well. They knew it was good to suffer in this life so they would reign in the one to come; to bear the cross below, to wear a crown above; and to know that not their will but His was done in them and through them.

The vision of the Angel of the Lord came to Moses while he was involved in his everyday work. That is exactly where the Lord delights in giving His revelations. He seeks a man traveling an ordinary road, and “suddenly a light from heaven” (Acts 9:3) shines on him. And a “stairway resting on the earth” (Genesis 28:12) can reach from the marketplace to heaven, transforming a life from one of drudgery to one of grace.

Beloved Father, help me to expect you as I travel the ordinary road of life. I am not asking for sensational experiences. Fellowship with me through my everyday work and service, and be my companion when I take an ordinary journey. And let my humble life be transformed by Your presence.

Some Christians think they must always be on the mountaintop of extraordinary joy and revelation, but this is not God’s way. Those high spiritual times and wonderful communication with the unseen world are not promised to us, but a daily life of communion with Him is. And it is enough for us, for He will give us those times of exceptional revelation if it is the right thing for us.

There were only three disciples allowed to see the Transfiguration, and the same three also experienced the darkness of Gethsemane. No one can stay on the mountaintop of favor forever, for there are responsibilities in the valley. Christ fulfilled His life’s work not in the glory but in the valley, and it was there He was truly and completely the Messiah.

The value of the vision and the accompanying glory is its gift of equipping us for service and endurance.