Wrestling with God

 

Wrestling with God

Wrestling with God - Audio/Visual 

During the night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his eleven sons and crossed the Jabbok River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent over all his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it out of its socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking!” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”

“What is your name?” the man asked. He replied, “Jacob.” “Your name will no longer be Jacob,” the man told him. “From now on you will be called Israel, because you have fought with God and with men and have won.” “Please tell me your name,” Jacob said. “Why do you want to know my name?” the man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there. Jacob named the place Peniel (which means “face of God”), for he said, “I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared.” The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip. (Genesis 32: 22-30)

Jacob was a pretty shady character. He pulled up his tent stakes and left with his family in the middle of the night. Even his name in Hebrew means “cheater,” or “schemer.” But a life-changing experience transformed him into a new person, and he became Israel – the man after whom an entire nation would be named. And after that experience Jacob was never the same. It’s an encouraging message. It’s a message that says we don’t have to stay in the rut we’re in because God will help us change. We just have to let him.

We know from the story that Jacob had a long wrestling match with an angel and that the angel was struggling. It was a no-win situation for them both. By daybreak, the angel had tired because it was a contest he couldn’t win; it was a struggle beyond his control. And when God wants to change us, he may just get our attention by putting us in a frustrating situation that is completely beyond our control – perhaps to the brink of exhaustion. God uses those experiences to get our attention because we’ll seldom change until we get completely fed up with our current situation; until we get uncomfortable, maybe even miserable. Because when we’re uncomfortable and miserable enough, we’re finally motivated to let God do something in our lives. That’s why, at least for some of us, we turn to prayer as a last resort because we’ve exhausted all the other alternatives without success. For most of us, we won’t change until our fear of change is exceeded by the pain of our circumstances.

By daybreak the angel asked to be let go, but Jacob refused: “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26) Clearly, Jacob was committed, even persistent. Some might even say he was pretty nervy to ask for a blessing. Regardless, he stayed with the situation until he worked it out. Granted, it was a situation that he didn’t like – it was frustrating and exhausting. But he was committed to staying with it until God turned it around for good. And the lesson to be drawn from Jacob’s determination is that after God gets our attention with a problem or circumstance, he doesn’t always solve it immediately. He may wait a little longer to see if we really mean what we say.

I think a lot of us miss God’s best for our lives because we give up too soon. We cop out and get discouraged. When God allows a problem in our lives, instead of hanging in there and saying, “God, I’m not going to let go of this until you bless me and turn this thing around,” we give up and end up missing God’s best. If we really want to change, we need to remember that we didn’t get into our predicament overnight. Our attitudes, actions, habits and fears took months, maybe even years to develop, and sometimes God has to remove them layer by layer. So, it may take some time but whatever you do, don’t give up. There’s hope. Be committed to getting God’s best for your life.

As the wrestling match was drawing to a close, the angel asked Jacob, “What’s your name?” and he answered, “Jacob” (Genesis 32:27). Why the question? Did God forget to tell the angel about the name of the man in the ring? No, probably not. Maybe it was to get Jacob to acknowledge his character by forcing him to audibly state his name which was the equivalent of saying he was a “cheater,” or “schemer.” In other words, Jacob was put in a place where he had to confess the heartache he’d caused his brother by scheming him out of his inheritance, among other things. Maybe what the angel was asking Jacob was more like, “Who are you at your core? Does your character define you?” Jacob’s response was simple. “I’m Jacob,” i.e., a cheat and a conman. There’s a reason why at every AA meeting the participants introduce themselves by name and then, to all present, confess their addiction. Jacob admitted his weaknesses by being honest with the angel, and with himself. When he identified himself as “Jacob,” he was owning up to his flaws.

That’s an important part of God’s process in  changing us because we will never change until we honestly confront, and then admit our faults, our sins, our weaknesses and our mistakes. God cannot go to work on changing our lives until we admit that we have a problem. Like Jacob, we need to get to a place where we can say, “Lord, I’m in a mess. I have a problem, and the problem is of my own making.” It’s then that God can go to work.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to make excuses for our problems? We’ve become experts at blaming other people for everything that’s wrong in our lives. “It’s not my fault, you know. It’s really the environment I was brought up in — my parents caused it.” Or, “The situation I’m in right now is all because of my boss.” Why do we do that? Because it’s hard to admit our faults, and scarier still to ask for help. But in confessing our faults to God, are we telling him something he doesn’t already know? When we tell God that we’ve sinned, it’s no surprise to him since he knew our problems all along. We confess our faults to him because he wants us to say, “You’re right, God, I have a problem and I need your help.” It’s humbling to admit our mistakes, but once we do God gives us all of his resources and power to help us change for the better. And the truth is that if we don’t learn that lesson now, we’ll end up learning it later on because God is going to teach it to us – one way or the other. We could save ourselves a whole lot of heartache if we would only respond properly when the crisis first presents itself.

God began changing Jacob as soon as he admitted who he was. And the change of scenery justified a new name for Jacob’s place of transformation: “Peniel,” meaning “the face of God.” (Genesis 32:30) Jacob had come face to face with God and was changed. God was saying to Jacob, in a manner of speaking, “Now we can get down to business. Just cooperate and trust me; I will change you. I will bless you.”

Notice what God didn’t say. He didn’t say, “Jacob, try really, really hard and use all of your willpower to become perfect.” God didn’t say that because that doesn’t work, and God knows it. He made us. Willpower cannot make permanent changes in our lives because willpower only attacks the outward circumstances, like losing weight or quitting a habit. It’s the internal motivation that makes the change permanent, and it’s the heart with which God wants to work.

God knows how to bring out the best in your life, and he knows how to do it better than you do. If you let him, God will use whatever is necessary to accomplish his goal because he doesn’t want you to waste your life. Take whatever situation is making you miserable, commit it to God and say, “God, I’m going to commit this to you. I’m going to hold on to you until you turn this problem around for good.” Then confess your shortcomings, cooperate with your Father, and watch his blessings flow.

The story concludes by telling us that “(t)he sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.” (Genesis 32:31) During the wrestling match, the angel had dislocated Jacob’s hip to bring the struggle to an end. The result? The match came to a close alright, but Jacob walked with a limp for the rest of his life. This detail is important because that hip and attached thigh muscle is one of the most powerful bone/muscle combinations in the human body. It seems that when God wanted to get Jacob’s attention, he touched him at a point of strength. And sometimes our strengths are the very things that God may touch to get our attention because we frequently forget from whom we received that gift. As a result, God may have to touch that strength to get our attention.

Jacob often got himself into trouble because he was a cheater, and he often reaped the consequences. But before his encounter with God, every time he got himself into a mess he ran away from it. So, God said, “I know how to take care of that temptation — I’ll put a limp in his walk,” and never again could Jacob run away from difficult situations. For the rest of his life he would have to stand and face his problems — not in his own strength, but in God’s. God will often put an obvious weakness in the very people whom he blesses, and sometimes that weakness may be a physical condition.

Do you want God to change your life? He will, but in his own way. He will use the processes of crisis, commitment, confession and cooperation to do so. And when God does the changing, it will become permanent. You won’t have to worry about your willpower, or staying with it because you will be cooperating with God by relaxing and trusting in him. Maybe you’ve been limiting God by making excuses, blaming other people, or rationalizing your behaviors. It’s hard to drop the mask and say, “God, I have a weakness. I have a problem.” But until we do, things will simply stay the same. However, when we do, we’ll be changed for the rest of our lives.

God sees an Israel in you. He sees what you can become. He sees your potential. He wants to change you from a Jacob to an Israel. So let God change you; you’ll never be the same again.

Grace,

Randy