Genesis 32:25

 25 When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.

It is no accident that the Lord wrestled with Jacob.  Wrestling is the most intimate form of combat; the closest two opponents can get to one another, and God has a way of interacting with his children very personally, up close, face to face.  When the Lord saw that Jacob was not going to give up and not going to let go, He reached out and touched Jacob’s hip joint, causing immediate dislocation.  The hip joint is the strongest joint in the human body.  To injure a hip is devastating, and often leads to death through the illnesses and atrophy that accompanies the loss of mobility.  Why would the Lord do such a thing to his chosen man, Jacob?  I can’t provide an exhaustive answer to that question, for it lies in the knowledge of God alone.  We are simply told what God did, and are often left to simply observe its effects.  There is one effect that I see in Jacob’s life, and it corresponds to His dealings with me:  Jacob’s weakness was exposed.  Up to this night, Jacob was a man’s man, a person who could figure out how to out-muscle, out-think, and out-maneuver whatever people or circumstances in life got in the way of him getting what he wanted.  Not tonight, though.  Not this time.  As he squared off with his Creator, Jacob was forced to live with, to suffer because of, his human frailty in the presence of his divine Creator. 

When we wrestle with God, our weaknesses are often exposed, sometimes in some very painful, humiliating ways.  Go to any recovery group meeting, or any prayer meeting worth its salt—you’ll find people just like you, admitting weaknesses and failures that they would never have admitted had not the Lord reached out and touched them—there, where they were weak.  Be thankful He does that; for when He touches us in our weakness He delivers us from the delusions that we carry of our supposed strength.  He does this for His own purposes, and if we are to follow the example of Jacob, the smartest move we can make is to simply resolve to hang onto Him, no matter what comes.

Father, by Your grace make me a person today who clings to you, despite whatever painful circumstances and experiences You may allow.  Expose my weaknesses, yes, but stay close to me that I may cling to you.

Genesis 32:22-24

 22 Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 He took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had. 24 Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

 

This is certainly one of the most fascinating accounts of a relationship between a believer and God found in the Bible.  The story of Jacob’s life bears out the appropriateness of his name, which means “Deceiver”.  He’d tricked his brother, his father, and even his employer-uncle, Laban—all to gain his own desires and wealth.  But the personal costs had been weighty; he’d lost whatever relationship he had with parents and his brother, was forced to live for twenty years away from home, was tricked into marrying a woman he didn’t love, had horrible relationships with his wives, was used by his wives to provide them with children and prestige, was caught fleeing in the night from his uncle Laban, and finally, Jacob learned that his estranged brother, Esau, was fast approaching with a force of four hundred men.  Jacob was terrified, and certain of receiving vengeance at the hands of his brother.  He sent gifts to his brother to try and assuage him, and organized his family and savants in such a way so as to result in the least amount of bloodshed possible when the two forces met.  Finally, after a day of desperate scheming, including sending his own wives and children ahead of him over a river canyon—Jacob was left alone, with nothing but his thoughts, his fears, and his failures in life.  And then, a man wrestled with him until daybreak.  God Himself, in human form, had come to personally confront Jacob that night.

As long as there were wives, children, servants, flock and herds, Jacob had the resources and the relationships by which to order his life in such a way so that he could create distance between him and God, for God had called Jacob to be a man who followed Him completely.  But Jacob had been away from the Lord for a long time, it seems, and had learned to use people and things to provide a buffer from God’s call on his life, and to numb himself from feeling the pain of the catastrophe he’d made of his life, and of many of the lives around him.  But now, there were no more things, no more people, no more jealous wives or angry uncles—just Jacob, who had finally run out of gas in his flight from God.  When God wrestles with His children, and I mean really wrestles, He waits until they’re alone and desperate.  

When you’re finally in that place where you have nothing, no one, and no plans, hopes, dreams or schemes to deliver you—stand and face your Father, who calls you to come back to Him from whatever far off places you’ve fled to.  You may have some real issues to deal with, some painful things to see about yourself, but as we’ll see as we observe this night in Jacob’s life over the next few days, the end of a wrestling match with God is when we stop fighting Him, cling to Him, and then receive victory from Him.  But we’ve got to be willing to wrestle.

Dear Father, I’ve failed in every attempt to make life work by my own resources and abilities.  I haven’t a clue of what it means to completely trust and surrender to You.  Please stay close to me in the darkest, loneliest times, and even if You have to wrestle me down, keep me in Your grip.