Last week, we dived into the topic of waiting on Godthrough the story of Jacob as he prepared to meet Esau. Today’s post unpacks the second part of the story: wrestling with God through life’s uncertainties.
Pull up a chair for a front-row seat to the world’s most famous—and strangest—wrestling match, where Jacob encounters God on the banks of the River Jabbok.
(I shared this message at a women’s retreat recently and have edited it for my readers here)
After all the frenzy of planning, panicking, pivoting, praying, and then planning the hows and whats of meeting his brother, Jacob finds himself all alone.
That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. So Jacob was left alone….
Alone.
Often that’s exactly where God needs to find us.
Not at church (surprise! surprise!) Not at lifegroup. Not at a Christian retreat (whaaa??!).
But alone.
It’s when all our security blankets have been stripped away that we finally have the opportunity to be vulnerable before God.
I think back to twenty-five years ago, when, as a young woman, I moved from Chennai, in South India, to Syracuse in upstate New York for grad school. I’d never been abroad before. I’d barely even been on a plane. Overnight, everything that was familiar and comforting to me—my family, my church, my friends, my culture, my food—disappeared… Sure, there were people around me, but as I navigated grad school and worked 20 hours a week serving food and mopping floors, I was alone.
But when those security blankets unraveled, layer by layer, my heart was exposed, and God became my everything.
But coming back to our main guy, Jacob.
Genesis 32:24 says: So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
God himself takes on the form of a man to engage with Jacob. Some scholars call this man a pre-incarnation of Christ. But here’s another interesting bit: Genesis 32:24 says, “A man wrestled with Jacob.” Not Jacob wrestled with a man.
God initiated the engagement. Not Jacob.
God cares enough about us to remove those security blankets. He cares enough about us to say, “Enough with the distractions and detours. I have some work to do in you and through you.”
Scripture goes on to say that when the man saw that he could not overpower Jacob, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip, and it was wrenched.
Why did it seem like the Man couldn’t overpower Jacob when, clearly, He could dislocate his hip with a mere touch?
God had chosen to limit His power for that particular time.
When my kids were little, my husband would come home from work, leave his laptop bag at the door, and immediately get on the living room floor for a mock wrestling match with them. My husband would hold back his strength so our 3-year-old would have a chance to fight him.
God wanted Jacob to come to the end of himself. He was showing Jacob that self-reliance is a losing game. He was teaching Jacob that his weakness would be a showcase for God’s strength.
In dealing with life’s unknowns, we first need to realize our own inadequacy.
We need to accept this unpopular idea: on my own, I’m not enough.
But also, through Christ, we are more than conquerors.
And here is Jacob’s mic drop, more-than-conqueror moment.
He says to the Man, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”(Gen 32:26)
Twenty years ago, Jacob had deceptively taken a blessing from Esau by tricking his father. Now Jacob desperately asks for a blessing from his Heavenly Father.
Deception had given way to a desperation for God because Jacob had discovered that nothing else would do.
He is saying, God, I’ve come to the end of myself. I’m done with my self-reliant scheming. I cannot do this without You, God.
Isn’t that a beautiful, empowering place to be? When we are desperate for the Lord, knowing that only Jesus can come through for us in every situation?
Jacob was defeated, but he had finally learned dependence on God.
God needed to dislocate Jacob’s hip to bring him to that point.
Interestingly, Jacob was camped out by the River Jabbok. In Hebrew, Jabbok means emptying or pouring out.
If today you feel like you’re being emptied out, there is a reason. God wants to work in you, and maybe even take something from you, before He works through you.
God sometimes needs to break us, to divinely dislocate us, to show us that He is enough.
Maybe you’re in a place where you feel like you’re out of options. But perhaps that’s exactly where God desires for you to be.
As we wrestle with God through life’s uncertainties, may we realize our own inadequacy.
And may we come to a place of radical reliance on Him.
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