A man came and wrestled with Jacob until dawn. When the man saw that he couldn’t win the match, he struck Jacob’s hip and knocked it out of joint at the socket. Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is dawn.” But Jacob panted, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” Genesis 32:24-26
“God wrenched his leg, and for the rest of his life Jacob walked with a limp. With every step he was reminded of the struggle and the surrender,” my Bible study teacher, Sue, said in her lecture. She explained how the angel of God came to Jacob in the middle of the night and wrestled with him until dawn, knocking his hip out of its socket, leaving Jacob with lifelong limp.
After class I raced to my car, full of emotion. Life at that point was a day-to-day struggle to manage Hope’s seizures. I knew that her life would soon be over and mine would never be the same. I will walk with an emotional limp for the rest of my life, I said to myself through tears. But I don’t want it to just remind me of the struggle and the pain; I want it to remind of a place of surrender, a place where God met me and blessed me. Otherwise, it is just wasted pain.
We often ask God to bless us, but perhaps it is a more dangerous prayer than we might imagine. Do you truly want all that God has for you? Don’t think that it will all be easy or comfortable, that it will come without a struggle. This is what God does with everyone He is going to use in a significant way. He comes to us at our pivotal point of surrender, and it is there we reveal how serious we are about Him, how desperate we are for Him, how much we truly want His blessing. The blessing is a changed life. And blessing comes through surrender.
Many people talk about wrestling with God when I really think they’re talking about rebelling against God. We don’t wrestle with God to force Him to explain Himself or to prove the power of our argument. Wrestling with God is not about pinning God down. It ‘s about experiencing His power and enjoying His presence. Redemptive wrestling with God is when we can’t bear to think about living without His blessing in our lives, when we value His blessing so much it is worth BEING DOWN IN THE TRENCHES fighting for. Wrestling with God may leave us with a limp, but our limp becomes a beautiful reminder of God’s blessing.
Prayer: What a tragedy, God, if I walk away from this place of struggle unchanged and unusable. Lord, I will not let you go unless you bless me! Your blessing in my life is worth whatever mark you may want to leave on my life.
Digging Deeper: Read the story of Jacob’s wrestling with the man in Genesis 32, noting Jacob’s attitudes, emotions, and actions.
NEXT UP: A personal example from author Nancy Guthrie’s life…