Scripture Reference: Genesis 32:24, 26
“Then Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of day.”
“And he said, Let me go, for the day breaks. But he said, I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
Yesterday’s mail contained a letter from Steve, an inmate in a South Texas prison. Steve said, brother Gregg, I’ve been reading about Jacob in Genesis 32. I was saved about a year after I came to prison in 2018. I’ve read about Jacob’s account of wrestling with an Angel or someone, but never really understood the meaning of this story. What is God trying to teach us?
Steve, thank you for your letter today and for sending back our bio-form questionnaire. This just gives us a little more info about you as we get to know you better. I appreciate your question and believe that God’s use of the wrestling metaphor is significant for all of us as God’s children. Jacob certainly had a most interesting life.
Now, to best answer this question, it helps to know, among other things, that deep-seated family hostilities characterized Jacob’s life. He was a determined man; some would consider him to be ruthless. He was a con artist, a liar, and a manipulator. In fact, the name Jacob not only means “deceiver,” but more literally it means “grabber.”
To know Jacob’s story is to know his life was one of never-ending struggles. Though God promised Jacob that through him would come not only a great nation, but a whole company of nations, he was a man full of fears and anxieties. At a pivotal point in his life, Jacob was about to meet his brother, Esau, who had vowed to kill him.
Jacob’s struggles and fears were about to be realized. Sick of his father-in-law’s treatment, Jacob had fled Laban, only to encounter his embittered brother, Esau. Anxious for his very life, Jacob concocted a bribe and sent a caravan of gifts along with his women and children across the River Jabbok in hopes of pacifying his brother. Now physically exhausted, alone in the desert wilderness, facing sure death, he was divested of all his worldly possessions. In fact, he was powerless to control his fate. He collapsed into a deep sleep on the banks of the Jabbok River. With his father-in-law behind him and Esau before him, he was too spent to struggle any longer.
But only then did his real struggle begin. Fleeing his family history had been bad enough; wrestling with God Himself was a different matter altogether. That night an angelic stranger visited Jacob. They wrestled throughout the night until daybreak, at which point the stranger crippled Jacob with a blow to his hip that disabled him with a limp for the rest of his life. It was then that Jacob realized what had happened: “I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared” (Genesis 32:30).
In the process, Jacob the deceiver received a new name, Israel, which likely means: “He struggles with God.” However, what is most important occurred at the conclusion of that struggle. We read that God “blessed him there” (Genesis 32:29).
In Western culture and even in our churches, we celebrate wealth, power, strength, confidence, prestige, and victory. We despise and fear weakness, failure, and doubt. Though we know that a measure of vulnerability, fear, discouragement, and depression come with normal lives, we tend to view these as signs of failure or even a lack of faith.
However, we also know that in real life, naïve optimism and the glowing accolades of glamour and success are a recipe for discontent and despair. Sooner or later, the cold, hard realism of life catches up with most of us. The story of Jacob pulls us back to reality.
Frederick Buechner, one the most read authors by Christian audiences, characterizes Jacob’s divine encounter at the Jabbok River as the “magnificent defeat of the human soul at the hands of God.” It’s in Jacob’s story we can easily recognize our own elements of struggle: fears, darkness, loneliness, vulnerabilities, empty feelings of powerlessness, exhaustion, and relentless pain.
Even the apostle Paul experienced similar discouragements and fears: “We were harassed at every turn—conflicts on the outside, fears within” (2 Corinthians 7:5). But, in truth, God does not want to leave us with our trials, our fears, our battles in life. What we come to learn in our conflicts of life is that God proffers us a corresponding divine gift. It is through Him that we can receive the power of conversion and transformation, the gift of not only surrender, but freedom, and the gifts of endurance, faith, and courage.
In the end, Jacob does what we all must do. He confronts his failures, his weaknesses, his sins, all the things that are hurting him . . . and faces God. Jacob wrestled with God all night. It was an exhausting struggle that left him crippled. It was only after he came to grips with God and ceased his struggling, realizing that he could not go on without Him, that he received God’s blessing (Genesis 32:29).
What we learn from this remarkable incident in the life of Jacob is that our lives are never meant to be easy. This is especially true when we take it upon ourselves to wrestle with God and His will for our lives. We also learn that as Christians, despite our trials and tribulations, our strivings in this life are never devoid of God’s presence, and His blessing inevitably follows the struggle, which can sometimes be messy and chaotic. Real growth experiences always involve struggle and pain.
Jacob’s wrestling with God at the Jabbok that dark night reminds us of this truth: though we may fight God and His will for us, in truth, God is so very good. As believers in Christ, we may well struggle with Him through the loneliness of night, but by daybreak His blessing will come.
Don’t Forget -- God Wants to Bless You
When God makes us wrestle him for some blessing(s), it is not because God is reluctant to bless us, even if that’s how it first feels. It is because he has more blessings for us in the wrestling than without it. I can clearly remember my own personal wrestling match with the Lord back in 2014 when for many months I cried out for answers, and for some understanding of what my condition was, and for what the coming years would bring. I wrestled with God in prayer for months until the Doctor’s finally gave me the correct diagnosis of “Central Pain Syndrome.” Little comfort did it bring, but at least this disease finally had a name.
Remember, God pursued Jacob for this match. God was the initiator. Jacob was stewing in his own anxiety over Esau and his approaching slaughter squad when God showed up. And the wrestling drew Jacob out of his fearful preoccupation and forced him to focus on God.
I doubt that Jacob wanted this forced focus or even believed he needed it at first. It wouldn’t surprise me if at the beginning Jacob had prayed, “God would you get rid of this guy? This is the last thing I need right now.” But what he discovered was that the wrestling was a means of God’s grace, a channel for God’s blessing on him.
The same is true for us.
Final Thought -- Keep On Wrestling
So I’ll ask again. What do you really need from God right now? What blessing do you want from him? How badly do you want it?
“Do not let God go until he blesses you.”
God will meet you in your anguish, fear, and uncertainty. But he may not meet you in the way you expect or desire. Your greatest ally may show up looking at first like your adversary, inciting you to wrestle with him.
If so, remember Jacob. There are multiple blessings in the wrestling. You may not need soft words of comfort, you may not need to be left alone with your thoughts, you may not need sleep, you may not even need a healthy hip! What you need is God’s blessing!
So when God calls you to wrestle with him in prayer, it is an invitation to receive his blessing. Stay with him and don’t give up. Do not let him go until he blesses you! He loves to bless that kind of tenacious faith and you will come out transformed.
Jacob began the night believing his greatest need was to escape from Esau. He ended the night believing his greatest need was to trust in the blessing of God’s promise. And what changed him from fearing man to trusting God’s word was prolonged and painful wrestling with God.
Sometimes, in your battle with unbelief, your greatest Ally will wrestle you — he might even make you limp — until you’re desperate enough to say, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” It is a great mercy to be brought to the point where you’re desperate enough to insist on what you need the most.
Heavenly Father, when you choose to take us to the mat, help us to understand that you do so with purpose; to know that our faith is being tested, and help us to hold on to you until we experience the blessings that come thru our sorrow and afflictions. Thank you for never leaving us to ourselves, but by always coming alongside us thru every moment of our distress. For your grace & glory we pray. Amen!
From: Fight the good fight of faith & life journal: By Gregg Harris
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