24This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrested with him until the dawn began to break…
…28“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.”(Genesis 32:24-28, Life Application Study Bible)
Greetings Fam. I am putting this together rather late because I have a few things to share. It is night time where I am at. Yesterday we had our second week of Bible Study and we looked at the story above, where Jacob wrestles with “a man” who is described as God, in some translations, and an Angel of God in others. Jacob, the old trickster, secures his second blessing by not letting the man go until he gives Jacob a blessing. The man/Angel, does so and changes Jacob’s name to Israel.
Last night we had a hearty discussion over this story and brought up a lot of good questions. Like, was the man really God, or an Angel? Who initiated the wrestling match? Was it the Angels intention to bless Jacob from the get-go, or did Jacob truly force the Angel to bless him through his persistence? If we believe the translations that Jacob wrestled with God, is this story telling us that we can force a blessing out of God?
While we had some really good answers to those questions, one question that really stuck with me came from our Chaplain when he asked the group if we’ve ever had a time in our life when we felt like we were wrestling with God. Boy, did that put a lump in my throat.
Yeah, oh yeah, I have definitely wrestled with God quite a few times in my life. I answered the Chaplain with the catch-all to those times by saying that I wrestled with God in those moments where I knew better. I knew the path sin would lead me down, and God was trying to pull me towards Him, but I still forced myself further away. I wrestle with God when I know what He’s asking me to do and I don’t really feel comfortable doing it. I wrestle with Him daily He’s pushing me to be a better steward of the faith and I just want to do my own thing. How about you? When have you found yourself wrestling with God?
Even this morning, when I was finally able to go to the town square and get a haircut from this really nice Polish barber, I found myself wrestling with an old friend in the mirror. Sitting in a barber’s chair in a foreign country where you don’t know the language well enough to understand what conversations are happening around you and the barber does not speak English, makes for a long, quiet haircut. So there I was, looking at 42-year-old me, noticing that I am getting a double-chin in my old age; seeing all the grey hair and admiring my “Deployment ‘stache”. I was wrestling with where the last 42-years have gone, when the barber insisted on putting pomade (like hair gel) in my hair before he sent me on my way. I tried to tell him no (I was going to take a shower as soon as I got back to post), but the barber persisted. As he styled my hair with the pomade, I saw a glimpse of 20-year-old me, who used to gel his hair back and be much more concerned about his looks than current day me. For an instant, I felt that 20-year-old trying to wrestle his way back to life. But, I quickly reminded myself that I really didn’t like 20-year-old me. That guy was consumed with worldly desires, distracted by pop culture, and had no relationship with God. I won that wrestling match in the Barber’s chair because I now know where true strength comes from: and that’s from my faith and love for Christ. Boy, I wish I had known that in my 20s. The question I now wrestle with is this: how do I honor God everyday to repay Him for forgiving “sinful me,” for blessing “selfish me,” and putting His hand on “broken me” to push me to become “Disciple me”? I can never thank God enough for the grace He has shown me, but I can sure try.
I have stories upon stories of how God has put His hand on my life. So many that I could write a song about it, but why bother, when Ms. Christine D’Clario has already done so, and she sings slightly better than me. That may be hard to believe, but click the image below and find out for yourself.
Common Sense Reborn 